This blog was originally posted onAvrio Genetics

What does the conversation about CBD exposure and fertility look like for you? How can we start the conversations that lead to innovative ideas? Sometimes the best way to begin is by asking the right questions. How does CBD affect reproductive outcomes? Is there a way to keep the good benefits of CBD but reduce the negative parts? And where do Epigenetics come into play? Avrio’s Brandon Hensinger met with fertility advocate Alice Crisci to start the conversation.

“This conversation surprised me immensely and it’s surprising a lot of people,” says Alice Crisci, who launched MedAnswers to help people in crisis. MedAnswers is a next-generation digital health company, whose first app FertilityAnswers helps those trying to conceive access specialty fertility care through an easy-to-use smartphone application. “This is why I partnered with Brandon… to bring a lot of these educational workshops to the table because the future is so personalized and it makes holistic wellness possible for us,” Crisci explains.While there are benefits of CBD for several health conditions that outweigh the risks of reproductive health, knowing whether or not cannabinoids have direct influences on your personal fertility is an important question to pose.

Reproductive autonomy is a hopeful contrast to the complicated limitations of Covid-19 for those in the midst of a fertility journey. Brandon Hensinger, CEO and founder of Avrio Genetics, explains, “We are a reproductive genetic company with the primary goal, our vision as a company, is to reverse the declining fertility rate in the world and make it possible for everybody who dreams of being parents to become parents.” Alice and Brandon’s conversation about CBD and fertility highlight reproductive autonomy, the role of epigenetics in discovering hidden infertility, and how Avrio’s Unveil: The Cannabinoid & Fertility Test is pioneering personalized reproductive health through epigenetic testing.

Reproductive Autonomy

Brandon: One of the primary things taking place over the past several years is a shift towards patients and people wanting to control more of their fertility journey and more of that process, and not wanting to just kind of sit back and just be told what to do, but to really want to take control of that. From a treatment perspective, from who they were going to see, from what they were being taught, what they were learning about the process, everything. Avrio has added a patient-centric focus rather than just a focus that only delivers technologies to clinics.

Alice: One, I love that. As we dive into the conversation of what is epigenetics and what’s the impact on everyone, the thing that I want you all to be listening for is: What are the things that I can do? It’s only 120 days, only 160 days. Why? Because for both men and women, the healthiest sperm and the healthiest egg is going to be released in a 120 to160 day window. To know that we have autonomy and we have control about what goes into our body and that we only need 160 days to get to that healthiest egg, I think is really empowering and really invigorating. That excites me about this.

“To know that we have autonomy and we have control about what goes into our body and that we only need 160 days to get to that healthiest egg, I think is really empowering and really invigorating. That excites me about this.”

– Alice Crisci, FertilityAnswers

What is Epigenetics? What is the Epigenetic Impact of CBD?:

Alice: The legalization of marijuana is taking off. People use CBD for all sorts of things, me included. When I was going through chemo, ingesting CBD and edibles, literally, I feel like saved my life during chemo. It saved me. But the question is, what is the epigenetic impact of CBD? And I think to address that, Brandon, you have to kind of break down the definition of epigenetics for us.

Brandon: Yeah, absolutely. So, in looking at the effects of CBD on reproductive health, we’re actually looking at the effects of not just CBD, but on all cannabinoids. CBD, THC- across the board.

“Epigenetics is actually the study of how your genes express themselves.”

-Brandon Hensinger, Avrio Genetics

It looks at what kind of environmental influences or lifestyle choices or things you’re eating, things you’re drinking, whatever it might be. It might be stress or a million other things. How are those things affecting the ways your genes express themselves?

Alice: And turn it on or turn it backwards.

Brandon: Exactly. For example, you have your genes and your DNA. The reason that some of your cells are liver cells and some of your cells are lung cells or your eyes, whatever it is, is because even though your genome, all your DNA is the same in every single cell- it all depends upon what kind of enzymes are attaching themselves to that DNA, which causes those genes to say, Hey, I’m going, because this is an enzyme from a liver, from the liver, I’m going to respond and create a liver cell. Or if it’s your DNA in another area, it’s going to create a different type of cell.That’s a very basic example.

Enzymes can come in many different forms and can actually cause your genes to stop expressing themselves or express themselves in a way that they shouldn’t be.

-Brandon Hensinger, Avrio Genetics

There’s a specific gene that we look at on this cannabinoid test of the analysis. In the presence of CBD or cannabinoids, that gene, where it normally expresses itself in a way that can create positive effects on reproductive health, in the presence of cannabinoids, that gene gets silenced and stops producing the signals in the RNA that it’s supposed to be presenting. And so that’s what epigenetics is.

Alice: I think that’s a great explanation. This is new research that is not widely understood. So, genetics are responsible for 30%, 70% is lifestyle. And everybody’s epigenetics has a little bit of a different impact too, right? It’s not all the same, which is why the testing is important to see which of your genes are being impacted.

Brandon: The benefit of the epigenetic testing is that epigenetics are the measurement of how your environment and choices are affecting the ways your genes are expressing themselves. That also means that you can do something about it.

Alice: Right. And it doesn’t mean you have to stop ingesting THC or CBD.

Brandon: Right. Our primary goal in creating epigenetic testing is giving actionable results. So that you’re not just like looking at something and being like, “Oh, well this is negatively affecting me.” But instead, you can say this is negatively affecting me, but here’s what I can do about it. And you’re right. There’s a myriad of benefits with various cannabinoids. Like if you’re being prescribed, there’s a need that you have for it. That’s the whole idea is that we are trying to help you see ifit is having an effect on reproductive health and how then you can find a solution around that problem.

Alice: Right, exactly. Every medication has a side effect, right. Every single thing that we ingest. Like blueberries can be really good for me. My son could be allergic to them. Right? So, this is all heading into very personalized and precision health and wellness in general. I think about the fact that the research shows that if you’ve smoked seven times, you’re more likely to have an issue with uterine receptivity.

Brandon: Yeah, exactly. And it’s not just with uterine receptivity. What’s really interesting is if you look at some of the research that exists already showing that endocannabinoids are present in, all in fluids, whether it’s in barriers, fluid in the uterine and in inside cells, in follicular cells, it’s like they’re present health. In chronic exposure to cannabinoids, whether it’s THC or CBD, one of the primary effects that it has is that it shuts off a signaling pathway to produce hormones, sex hormones.

Alice: That’s interesting. Wait, can we pause there for a second? That’s a big deal.

What the Research Says:

Alice: In the research, does it address the different strains of CBD and THC? And if the strains make a difference? So the question is, has the research studied, if there’s a difference right. In the two forms and has the research also evaluated how it’s entering the body?

Brandon: The answer to both of those questions is yes, but there’s a lot of qualifications and caveats to it. The FDA recently issued out an invitation to participate in multiple round tables to investigate the effects of cannabinoids on reproductive health, because they wanted to do more research on it. It’s really a significant issue. The initial sets of research that have been done have been in primary categories, just in the general categories of just cannabinoids in general.

There are more studies that are specifying looking at THC and CBD and different types of THC and how each of them are affecting the system in different ways. But what’s really interesting is as a general category, the cannabinoids are still affecting the same pathways because no matter what, your cannabinoid receptors in your body CB1, CB2- they’re the same receptors. Once the cannabis enters your system, then there’s definitely different effects.

Brandon: A very easy way to look at this as an example of that I think a lot of people would understand is I’ve had horrible allergies my entire life, but Claritin does not work for me ever in any way, shape or form, but Zyrtec does. But you know, on the Claritin bottle, it says it’s 99.9% effective on this or 0.1% on the Zyrtec bottle. It says it’s 99.1% effective. So a lot of people would pick up that bottle and say, I’m going to pick the one that is more effective, but that’s just because that’s what the general research has come up with, but it’s not personalized to everybody, but for me it doesn’t work.

That’s why with epigenetics, it’s preventing the guesswork, and it’s helping you to see if something is negatively affecting you and what you can do about it.

– Brandon Hensinger, Avrio Genetics

What’s really interesting is using it in a setting that if you have had and struggled with, or if you’re struggling with infertility right now, and you’ve gone through tests after tests, after tests, and nobody is figuring out what the problem is, you know, a lot of this research is showing that even exposure a few times in your life, right, in some cases can leave permanent effects on your reproductive health. So, this could actually be a way to look and find hidden causes of infertility.

Alice: Cannabis, which I would do again in a heartbeat because of how beneficial it was to me during coping with chemo, could have led to my early pregnancy losses or maybe the risks of the early pregnancy losses. Because there’s a lot of different factors that go into that. I successfully did my frozen embryo transfer and had no issues with uterine receptivity five years after I had ingested my CBD infused brownies. So, I didn’t have any trouble there, but I most definitely, and which could have been chemo related, it could have been CBD related. It could have been both related. Right. Because I think that’s the other thing about even chemo and some of the other health things that we have to take the Zyrtec or the, whatever it might be, it is usually an epigenetic impact. Right?

Brandon: That’s exactly right. It’s a hundred percent, a hundred percent accurate. Everything is an epigenetic effect.

Alice: Right. And I love that because I think about women in our infertility community. Everybody’s like, “Eat pineapple core, right? It reduces inflammation,” but it doesn’t reduce inflammation for everyone. It reduces inflammation for some people.

I was predisposed to developing breast cancer at some point in my life, but most likely post-menopause because that’s when other women in my family had been diagnosed with it. But I got it at 31. And if I look at my history of trauma, my history of high stress; I’m like, “There has to have been an epigenetic accelerant.”

Brandon: When you can identify what genes are being affected epigenetically, then you can introduce therapy that is specific to how those genes will respond. And that’s the concept here of what we’re trying to develop.

Unveil: The Cannabinoid & Fertility Test

Understanding how epigenetics works may be the first important step in creating reproductive autonomy on your fertility journey. Avrio’s Unveil: The Cannabinoid & Fertility Test is an at-home test that gives insight to hidden factors that may affect your fertility, whether you are a male or female. This groundbreaking test provides actionable results, and when ordered through your clinician, allows immediate access to therapies that can reverse the damage done to your reproductive health.

Alice Crisci says the future is so bright, and here at Avrio- we couldn’t agree more.

FertilityAnswers connects patients directly to multi-disciplinary experts for on-demand questions and answers. Ask more questions on the FertilityAnswers app here and visit @avirogenetics on Instagram.

Watch the full video of Brandon and Alice’s compelling conversation about epigenetic testing for reproductive health here: