At 34, pharmacist Dr. Kevin Tran took a routine consumer gene test expecting supplement tweaks — instead he found two copies of APOE4, a variant tied to up to a 33x higher Alzheimer's risk. When neurologists across three countries told him the same thing — come back when you have symptoms — he built his own answer: the Phoenix Project, a crowdsourced "N-of-many" self-experimentation community now approaching 700 members. In this episode of The DNA of Things, Kevin walks Dr. Jeremy Koenig through his own biomarker turnaround (HbA1c, cholesterol, VO2 max), the humbling truth buried in Phoenix's unpublished data (zero of 250 supplements hit statistical significance), a surprising creatine-and-sleep finding, and why he believes APOE4 carriers deserve their own lane in Alzheimer's drug trials.

Key Takeaways:

• 🧬 25% of the population carries APOE4, but most never get tested — Kevin didn't know until a random consumer swab test
• 📈 Two copies of APOE4 = up to 33x higher Alzheimer's risk; one copy is closer to 4x
• 🩺 Three neurologists, three countries (US, France, Singapore), same advice: wait for symptoms — which Kevin calls "insane"
• 💪 In 6-7 months of diet/exercise changes: HbA1c dropped 5.9% → 5.4%, cholesterol 115 → 70, body fat 22% → 13%, VO2 max 36 → 51
• 🔬 Across 250+ supplements tested by 650 Phoenix members over 6-7 months, none crossed statistical significance community-wide
• 😴 High-dose creatine (20g/day) disrupted deep/REM sleep in ~15% of members — a finding not reported elsewhere
• 🧊 Sauna use (4-5x/week) shows the strongest anecdotal signal in the community for energy and reduced brain fog
• ✂️ Kevin believes APOE4's single-base difference makes it a prime CRISPR target — but brain delivery remains the core obstacle

LINKS:

https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/
https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/
https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig

Here's the link for this week's episode: https://drjeremykoenig.substack.com/.