Every supplement label has a recommended daily dose. That number was calculated for someone with average absorption, average metabolism, average genetics.
The average human is a statistical fiction.
Real people carry variants, small differences in their DNA that change how they absorb vitamin D, process B12, metabolise magnesium. These variants don't make you sick. They just mean the supplement designed for the median person on the label might be doing very little for you specifically.
I've spent years watching people do everything right and still feel like something is off.
The MTHFR problem nobody talks about
Around 40% of people carry a variant in a gene called MTHFR.
That gene controls how your body converts folate into a form it can actually use. Carry the variant and your conversion rate drops. Standard B-complex supplements contain folic acid, the synthetic form, which your body still has to convert. If your MTHFR is impaired, a lot of that folic acid just doesn't land.
The form that works is methylfolate, already converted. But most multivitamins list folic acid, at a dose calibrated for someone whose MTHFR runs at full speed.
40% of people are taking the wrong form of a vitamin they think they're covered on.
I've written a fuller piece on this one: MTHFR, folate and folic acid, and what the variant actually changes.
Vitamin D is even worse
Everyone knows they're probably low on vitamin D. So they buy 2000 IU, take it daily, test again six months later, and still test low.
What they don't know is that the VDR gene, the vitamin D receptor, has common variants that change how the body responds to supplemented D3. Some people need roughly three times the standard dose to reach the same blood level. Others absorb it fine but carry a variant in GC, the transport protein, that changes how D3 moves through the blood.
A generic 2000 IU capsule is a guess. A well-calibrated guess, but still a guess.
What nutrigenomics actually is
Nutrigenomics is the study of how your genes affect your nutritional needs.
It's been a research field since the early 2000s, and over the last decade the evidence base has become solid enough to do something practical with it. We know, with reasonable confidence, which variants affect which nutrient pathways. Not all of them, nutrition science is still messy, but enough to matter.
Sixty-plus markers cover most of the clinically relevant ground: how you absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, your B-vitamin metabolism, your omega-3 conversion efficiency, mineral absorption, antioxidant response, even how you handle caffeine and certain phytonutrients.
None of this is exotic. These are mainstream variants, studied in peer-reviewed literature, affecting everyday nutrients.
Why I built MyGNLab
I kept coming back to how odd it is that we sequence whole genomes for disease risk, then take a one-size supplement because the bottle says so.
The genetics are accessible. The lab science exists. The missing piece was a system that goes from your DNA to a properly calibrated formula. Not a menu where you pick based on a symptom quiz, but a formula computed from your actual markers.
That's what MyGNLab does. You send a saliva sample. An accredited laboratory in Austria analyses 60+ nutritional genetic markers. From that report, we blend a personalised formula and ship it as a 90-day supply of daily sachets.
Each sachet holds microencapsulated pellets, different nutrients with different release timings in one dose. You take one in the morning, and every dose is computed from your markers rather than chosen off a shelf.
What you actually get
The genetic report comes first. You'll see which variants you carry and what they mean for your nutrition, in plain language rather than clinical jargon.
Then the formula arrives, and you'll know exactly why each ingredient is in it and at what dose.
Some people learn they've been taking folic acid for years when they needed methylfolate. Some find their vitamin D dose was off by a factor of two. Some discover their omega-3 conversion is so slow that fish oil alone was never going to do much. The genetics are just there to be read. The supplement industry simply never had a reason to look.
Curious what your markers say?
One saliva test reads 60+ nutritional genetic markers and turns them into a permanent report and a formula built for your biology.
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