Welcome to the Bostics, starring Lauren Bostic and Michael Bostic. Together, they are the Bostics.

Victoria Thane Joya is on the show. She is the co-founder and CEO of Parallel, the first OBGYN-founded

vitamin company, offering doctor-formformulated research-backed supplements.

I liked this episode as a mother because Victoria is a mother of four, and she understands the

whole landscape when it comes to running a business, caring about health, and also managing her children. So this conversation

was very much relatable to me. And I think it'll be relatable to you, especially if you're

someone who wants to be pregnant, is thinking about getting pregnant, or maybe you are pregnant.

Some topics here are the MTHR gene mutation. We discuss the truth about

prenatal vitamins, creatine for women, hormone health, postpartum mental wellness, and balancing it all

as a mother and a businesswoman. Victoria, welcome to the show. Why are we seeing MTHFR everywhere?

It's everywhere. I mean, in general, I think it's a little

overblown, but because I don't know what you do with that information, except for say,

okay, then I should take a more bioavailable format because my body can't process

folic acid in the same way. But why doesn't everyone just take a more bioavailable

format of folic acid, which is methylated folate? And so folic acid is the synthetic format,

and it requires everyone, out of everyone, that your body methylates it to convert it into folate.

So it's like folic acid has to be methylated into folate and then your body can absorb it. Or you could just start with folate. I don't think a lot of people know that. And even when you were taught, we just started talking about this, but we're clear now and we've covered this on this show. If you have the mth-H-F-R gene mutation, got it one time, then, then you cannot convert folic acid in your body, right? You can't do it as effectively. You can't do it as effectively. Okay. So people know, okay, I got to take a methylated vitamin to do that. Yes. But I don't think a lot of people

realize you could just take, even if you don't have the gene mutation, you could take the

methylated. I didn't know that. Yeah, because it's also just reducing the body burden. You know,

we're taking a lot of supplements today. Like, let's reduce all of the processes our body has to

make. And so across all different formats of ingredients, like take the most

bioavailable format that has the fewest steps for your body to absorb them. So it's almost like

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