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In this episode, I talk about environmental load - not in a dramatic or moralizing way, but as a practical biological reality. I explain how small daily exposures can accumulate through air, water, food, dust, cosmetics, plastics, cleaning products, furniture, packaging, cookware, and indoor environments. The question is not whether one single exposure will harm you. The question is what happens when small exposures arrive through multiple pathways, every day, for years. This episode is about awareness, not perfection. I am not interested in making anyone afraid of modern life. I am interested in helping you identify the few inputs that matter enough to change.   Downloadable Document "Room by room audit" DOWNLOAD HERE   If you are interested in becoming an Epigenetics Coach yourself, learn about my program here: The Certified Epigenetics Coach Training   Sources Kahn, L. G. et al. - Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: Implications for Human Health https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7437820/ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - PFAS Explained https://www.epa.gov/pfas/pfas-explained National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences - Endocrine Disruptors https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/volatile-organic-compounds-impact-indoor-air-quality Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / NIOSH - Benzene: NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0049.html Leslie, H. A. et al. - Discovery and Quantification of Plastic Particle Pollution in Human Blood https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022001258 Sharma, R. K. et al. - Impact of Microplastics on Pregnancy and Fetal Development: A Systematic Review https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11186737/ Imprint Dr. Nicola Schmitz Epigenetics Coach Alter Health Instagram: @alter._health Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Contact: [email protected]

In this episode, I compare three generations of bodies: our grandmothers, our mothers, and us. I talk about how daily life used to contain continuous, varied, unconscious movement - carrying, walking, lifting, cleaning, climbing, gardening, kneading, bending - and how modern life has removed much of that movement in just a few generations. I also explain why muscle is not simply a movement tissue. Muscle is metabolically active, hormonally communicative, and deeply connected to inflammation, blood sugar, bone, brain, mitochondria, and longevity. Movement is not only exercise. It is information.   If you are interested in becoming an Epigenetics Coach yourself, learn about my program here: The Certified Epigenetics Coach Training   Sources Severinsen, M. C. K. & Pedersen, B. K. - Muscle–Organ Crosstalk: The Emerging Roles of Myokines https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7288608/ Pedersen, B. K. - Muscles and Their Myokines https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2832864/ Henson, J. et al. - Sedentary Behaviour and Disease Risk https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10588158/ Park, J. H. et al. - Sedentary Lifestyle: Overview of Updated Evidence of Potential Health Risks https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7700832/ Lindholm, M. E. et al. - An Integrative Analysis Reveals Coordinated Reprogramming of the Epigenome and the Transcriptome in Human Skeletal Muscle After Training https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580508/ Lee Know - Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/mitochondria-and-the-future-of-medicine/ Imprint Dr. Nicola Schmitz Epigenetics Coach Alter Health Instagram: @alter._health Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Contact: [email protected]

In this episode, I talk about food not only as fuel, but as information. I look at how modern food has changed: nutrient density, processing, additives, pesticides, packaging, ultra-processed foods, and the growing evidence that what we eat communicates with metabolism, inflammation, hormones, gut microbes, mitochondria, and gene regulation. This is not a fear-based episode. It is an inventory. My goal is to help you understand why “eating well” can be more complicated today than it was for previous generations - and why food quality, processing, and context matter.   If you are interested in becoming an Epigenetics Coach yourself, learn about my program here: The Certified Epigenetics Coach Training   Sources Lane, M. M. et al. - Ultra-Processed Food Exposure and Adverse Health Outcomes: Umbrella Review of Epidemiological Meta-Analyses https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310 Chris van Tulleken - Ultra-Processed People https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/447284/ultra-processed-people-by-tulleken-chris-van/9781529160222 Davis, D. R., Epp, M. D., & Riordan, H. D. - Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15637215/ Marles, R. J. - Mineral Nutrient Composition of Vegetables, Fruits and Grains: The Context of Reports of Apparent Historical Declines https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889157516302113 Leslie, H. A. et al. - Discovery and Quantification of Plastic Particle Pollution in Human Blood https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022001258 Ragusa, A. et al. - Plasticenta: First Evidence of Microplastics in Human Placenta https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020322297 Imprint Dr. Nicola Schmitz Epigenetics Coach Alter Health Instagram: @alter._health Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Contact: [email protected]

In this episode, I take you through one night of sleep, hour by hour. I talk about sleep as one of the most active biological states of the body: a time for memory consolidation, hormonal regulation, immune recalibration, glymphatic clearance, mitochondrial recovery, oxidative stress repair, and cellular maintenance. My aim is to move sleep out of the category of “rest” and into the category of essential biological work. Losing sleep is not only about being tired the next day. It changes what the body is able to repair, clear, regulate, and rebuild.   Downloadable Document A supporting document for this episode is available here: The Sleep Audit   If you are interested in becoming an Epigenetics Coach yourself, learn about my program here: The Certified Epigenetics Coach Training   Sources Matthew Walker - Why We Sleep https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Why-We-Sleep/Matthew-Walker/9781501144325 Reddy, O. C. & van der Werf, Y. D. - The Sleeping Brain: Harnessing the Power of the Glymphatic System Through Lifestyle Choices https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7698404/ Chong, P. L. H. et al. - Sleep, Cerebrospinal Fluid, and the Glymphatic System https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8821419/ Davinelli, S. et al. - Sleep and Oxidative Stress: Current Perspectives on the Role of Sleep in Cellular Homeostasis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11199221/ Zou, Y. et al. - Nightshift Work Can Induce Oxidative DNA Damage: A Pilot Study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10184341/   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected]

In this episode, I talk about stress not as a vague feeling, but as biology. I describe three different stress patterns I have seen again and again: the high-functioning achiever who cannot feel the cost, the person who switches off but never truly resets, and the person whose nervous system is fragmented by constant demand. The chemistry may overlap - cortisol, adrenaline, inflammation, sleep disruption, neurotransmitter depletion, immune effects - but the way stress enters the body is not the same for everyone. This episode is about recognizing the pattern before trying to fix it.   Sources Herman, J. P. et al. - Regulation of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenocortical Stress Response https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4867107/ Knezevic, E. et al. - The Role of Cortisol in Chronic Stress, Neurodegenerative Diseases, and Psychological Disorders https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10706127/ Cleveland Clinic - HPA Axis: What It Is and How It Works https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-hpa-axis Palma-Gudiel, H. et al. - Stress-Induced Epigenetic Changes in Humans https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6971665/     Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected]

Today we do something different. We follow a single molecule on its actual journey, from a leaf of spinach growing in a field, through your gut wall, through your liver, through an enzyme called MTHFR that you may have heard about from genetic testing, into a single cell, all the way to a specific spot on a specific gene where it silences the gene it was made to silence. The journey is real. It is happening, in some version, in your body right now, trillions of times a second, with the molecules from the food you ate yesterday and this morning. And in most modern adults, the journey is failing at at least one point. Often at several. This episode shows you where those failure points are and what the pathway actually needs to run at full speed. If your blood work is normal but your energy is not, if your mood swings without obvious cause, if you carry unexplained fatigue that no doctor has been able to name, this is the episode that may explain it. Free download with this episode: Nutrients Almost Every Westerner Is Low In. A practical reference with the nutrients that support methylation, the best food sources, and notes on supplementation.  For a personal conversation about your own methylation and where to start.   Sources Choi, S. W. et al. - Modulation of DNA Methylation by One-Carbon Metabolism https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10375321/ Raghubeer, S. et al. - Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase, the One-Carbon Cycle, and Disease https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8703276/ Crider, K. S. et al. - Folate and DNA Methylation: A Review of Molecular Mechanisms and the Evidence for Folate’s Role https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3262611/ Stover, P. J. - One-Carbon Metabolism–Genome Interactions in Folate-Associated Pathologies https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2777484/ Ben Lynch - Dirty Genes https://www.harpercollins.com/products/dirty-genes-ben-lynch   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected]

Everything you do enters your body through four doors. The bloodstream, the nervous system, the hormonal cascade, and the microbiome. Every meal, every night of sleep, every stressful call, every walk, every drink of water passes through one of these four channels and becomes, on the other side, information for your cells. In this episode, we walk through each of the four doors and see how they actually work. We look at estrogen recycling and why the gut has more to do with hormones than most people realize. We meet a businessman whose morning routine looked perfect from the outside, and whose afternoons quietly undid everything he had built in the mornings. And we set up the bridge into the next episode, where we go deep into methylation, the switch behind everything else we have discussed. If you have ever wondered what actually happens to a meal or a stressful conversation once it enters your body, this is the episode where the machinery gets visible. If you are interested in becoming an Epigenetics Coach yourself, have a look here: Certified Epigenetics Coach Training   Sources Hartley, T. R. et al. - Caffeine and Stress: Implications for Risk, Assessment, and Management of Hypertension https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8101832/ Reis, C. E. G. et al. - Effects of Coffee Consumption on Glucose Metabolism https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6544578/ National Cancer Institute - Benzene and Cancer Risk https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/substances/benzene Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / NIOSH - Benzene: NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0049.html U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - Volatile Organic Compounds’ Impact on Indoor Air Quality https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/volatile-organic-compounds-impact-indoor-air-quality Joye, Y. - Some Reflections on the Relevance of Fractals for Art Therapy https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4147024/   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected]

If a doctor has ever told you that something runs in your family and there is nothing you can do about it, this episode is for you. Genetic risk is real. Genetic destiny is not. The gap between the two is where almost all of the useful work happens, and almost nobody is taught to see it. We look at penetrance, which is the technical word for how often a gene actually produces the trait it codes for. We look at the Dutch Hunger Winter studies, which showed that what one generation lives through can shape the biology of the next. And we walk through a client story about a woman who was tested for the BRCA1 gene and, after receiving her result, said something that stays with me: I have wasted twenty years. Free download with this episode: Family History Mapping, a structured guide to look at your own family history and see the patterns that actually matter.  If you carry a family history that has been weighing on you, or you want to think about your own biology with better information, this is for you.   Sources GeneReviews / NCBI Bookshelf - BRCA1- and BRCA2-Associated Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1247/ National Cancer Institute - BRCA Gene Changes: Cancer Risk and Genetic Testing https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetics/brca-fact-sheet Kuchenbaecker, K. B. et al. - Risks of Breast, Ovarian, and Contralateral Breast Cancer for BRCA1 and BRCA2 Mutation Carriers https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2632503 Chen, S. & Parmigiani, G. - Meta-Analysis of BRCA1 and BRCA2 Penetrance https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267287/ Heijmans, B. T. et al. - Persistent Epigenetic Differences Associated with Prenatal Exposure to Famine in Humans https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2579375/ Kaati, G., Bygren, L. O., & Edvinsson, S. - Cardiovascular and Diabetes Mortality Determined by Nutrition During Parents’ and Grandparents’ Slow Growth Period https://www.nature.com/articles/5200859 Vågerö, D. et al. - Paternal Grandfather’s Access to Food Predicts All-Cause and Cancer Mortality in Grandsons https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07617-9 Ben Lynch - Dirty Genes https://www.harpercollins.com/products/dirty-genes-ben-lynch   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected]

Two identical twin sisters, raised in the same house in northern Germany, ended up in their late fifties with two completely different bodies. Same DNA, two different lives, two different biologies. This is the door into Season 2, and into one of the most important scientific findings of the last twenty years: your genes are not the script of your life. There is a layer above the genes, called the epigenome, that decides what each gene actually does. And that layer is being shaped, every day, by what you eat, how you sleep, how you move, how you feel, and who you spend your days with. In this opening episode, we look at the strange and humbling story of the Human Genome Project, how researchers expected to find a hundred thousand human genes and instead found about twenty thousand, roughly the same as a roundworm. We look at what was hiding in the ninety-eight percent of DNA once dismissed as junk. And we introduce the piano metaphor that will hold together the rest of the season. If you have ever wondered why one person stays well and another falls apart on the same diet, in the same family, with the same medical care, this is the episode that answers the question.   Sources National Human Genome Research Institute - Human Genome Project Fact Sheet https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/educational-resources/fact-sheets/human-genome-project National Institutes of Health - National Human Genome Research Institute Almanac https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/nih-almanac/national-human-genome-research-institute-nhgri Feinberg, A. P. - The Key Role of Epigenetics in Human Disease Prevention and Mitigation https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3752894/ Alegría-Torres, J. A., Baccarelli, A., & Bollati, V. - Epigenetics and Lifestyle https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3752894/ Bruce H. Lipton - The Biology of Belief https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781683649076/thebiologyofbelief/   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected]

I spent years doing this work quietly, one person at a time. This episode is about why I finally started saying it out loud. About the resistance I had to overcome. About who this podcast is for. And about what I hope happens between you and me over the seasons to come.   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected] Music by DJKiyo

We sold our practices. We sold our house. We took our daughters and moved to Dubai. Not because we were running away. Because we understood that you cannot heal in the same environment that broke you. This episode tells the story of the biggest external change of our lives, and what happened to our bodies when we finally gave them space to recover.   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected] Music by DJKiyo

I sat at my desk and cried in fury when I realized that the knowledge to help my husband had been in peer-reviewed journals the whole time. Nobody had taught it to me in medical school. This episode explains why genes turn on and off, what five factors created the conditions for his disease to activate, and why conventional medicine missed all of it.   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected] Music by DJKiyo

My husband said something that broke me and then, a few hours later, lit a fire that hasn't gone out since. This is the moment I discovered epigenetics. The moment I understood that the diagnosis was not the whole story. And the moment our marriage became a project to prove that the doctors' prognosis was not fixed. Resources mentioned in this episode: Free Guide - Start Listening to Your Body: [link when ready] Ready to go deeper? I offer 1:1 epigenetic coaching. Learn more: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected] Music by DJKiyo

I spent three months reading medical research at two in the morning, looking for answers the entire medical system said didn't exist. This episode takes you inside the detective work, the specialists I saw, the geneticist who laughed at the doctor who ordered the test, and the moment I found a diagnosis that nobody else had thought of. And what it felt like to be right when you wish you were wrong.   Resources mentioned in this episode: Free Guide - How to advocate yourself in difficult medical appointments: LINK   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected] Music by DJKiyo

Before the diagnosis, before the research, before Dubai, there was a life that looked perfect from the outside. Two successful careers, two healthy daughters, a beautiful home in the Bavarian Alps. And underneath all of it, two people running on empty. This is the story of how chronic stress, sleep deprivation, and years on the treadmill created the conditions for a genetic disease to wake up. And how a wife who refused to accept the doctors' answers began searching for a different story.   Stay connected: Website: www.dr-nicolaschmitz.com Instagram: @alter._health Email: [email protected] Music by DJKiyo