My methylation cycle runs at ~40% capacity. MTHFR C677T is homozygous, confirmed structurally
pathogenic by AlphaMissense (score 0.6324). This single enzyme bottleneck cascades through DNA repair,
neurotransmitter synthesis, and homocysteine metabolism. Riboflavin (B2) is the targeted support:
the FAD cofactor that helps the impaired enzyme work better.
My nitric-oxide pathway leans low: I carry four NOS3 (nitric oxide synthase)
variants, all homozygous — but they're common alleles, each only a moderate nudge
toward less nitric oxide, not the rare combination I first assumed. Worth supporting anyway:
L-citrulline and beetroot feed an alternative NO pathway.
My Phase II detox has one real gap: GSTM1 looks deleted (rs366631 tags a deletion
carried by roughly half of Europeans), so I make one fewer glutathione-transferase enzyme —
I'm still confirming the deletion directly from the raw sequence. The SOD2 variant I used to worry
about turned out not to be a real risk for me. NAC and cruciferous vegetables support the backup pathways.
The good news: key protective systems are intact. I'm clear on the classic
high-production TNF-alpha promoters (the −308 and −238 variants that show up in 30+
articles), carrying only one milder promoter. APOE ε3/ε3 (no Alzheimer's risk allele),
FOXO3, Klotho, and DEPTOR (rs4871827, homozygous — an mTOR brake that also means fewer vascular
complications from type 2 diabetes) longevity variants present, CRP trends low. My body converts plant nutrients poorly
(BCO1, FADS1/2, VDR) — solved by choosing pre-formed supplements over precursors.
Beyond single genes, my whole-genome (polygenic) scores tell the most distinctive
story: very high fluid intelligence (~99th percentile) and very high emotional sensitivity
(neuroticism ~99.9th, confirmed by two independent scores), moderate ADHD, average autism (which
hints it leans more on rare variants than common ones), and below-average anxiety — so my
common-variant anxiety isn't elevated, and likely tracks more with ADHD than its own program.
The most striking thing in the whole profile is a gap between two scores that normally travel
together. My fluid-intelligence score sits at the 99th percentile. My
educational-attainment score sits at the 6th — and a second,
independent education score agrees at the 11th. That's roughly ninety percentile points between two
traits that are usually close relatives. The resolution is in what the education score actually
measures: not intelligence, but years of schooling completed — which is intelligence
plus a large non-cognitive remainder: persistence through tedium, delay of gratification,
institutional compliance, tolerance for structure someone else designed. Read correctly, it says I
have 99th-percentile cognitive machinery and bottom-decile scaffolding-and-compliance machinery.
That's the genetic signature of an autodidact, and it quietly rewrites a story I
carried for a long time about being a lifelong underachiever: the capacity was never the constraint.
What was missing was non-cognitive scaffolding — and its absence is structural, not a matter of
trying harder.
Two more scores make the neuroticism finding coherent rather than a one-score fluke:
depressive symptoms ~91st percentile and subjective wellbeing ~36th
— low wellbeing being the same signal read from the other end. Three independent scores pointing
the same direction is an architecture, not noise. The boundary I drew above still holds, though:
anxiety disorder specifically lands below median (~45th). The loading is for negative
affect and rumination, not for an anxiety disorder.
The rest of the seventeen scores are a mix of confirmations and honest gaps.
Openness ~73rd is the satisfying one: my measured Big Five openness came out at the
75th percentile, so a polygenic score and a self-report questionnaire built decades apart landed in
the same place. Cognitive performance ~86th echoes the intelligence score from a
different study. Height ~79th, cannabis use ~76th, and
risk tolerance ~47th fill in the ordinary middle. And
physical activity ~18th is the other loading-versus-expression gap on this page: a
bottom-quintile predisposition to move, sitting against a training practice I actually keep. Genotype
is a starting position, not a report card.