Look, there’s nothing fairly like beginning your day by pooping on a bit of paper hammock affixed to your bathroom seat after which poking it a bunch of instances with a cotton swab. It was extra of a psychological hurdle than a sensible one, although, as the gathering and disposal (you simply flush the hammock down whenever you’re finished) was straightforward sufficient. You then swish the stick round in an answer, cap it, and ship it off. Twenty days later, I obtained an e mail that my outcomes had been in.
On the web site, your outcomes are damaged down into a number of sections: Abstract (with tabs for Mind Well being, GI Well being, Metabolic Well being, Pores and skin Well being, and Bodily Efficiency), Motion Plan (with tabs for Highest Affect, Food plan, Way of life, and Probiotics), and the Organisms web page, which exhibits you each single organism it present in your pattern, and their relative abundance. Mine held some surprises.
On the optimistic aspect, my Microbiome Range got here in at 4.19, which is above common (regular vary is 2.80–3.99, as measured by the Shannon Index), which it says is an indication of a wholesome microbiome, and it didn’t discover any pathogens or parasites. It says I digest lactose nicely (thank goodness). It didn’t discover any associations for issues like melancholy, celiac illness, IBS, ulcerative colitis, leaky intestine, hypertension, eczema, or a bunch of different issues that I’m grateful to not have. A few of these had been truly a bit puzzling, frankly, as I’ve struggled with insomnia just about my whole life, but it surely didn’t discover any associations there, or for fatigue, and I’m most assuredly a drained human.
So far as associations that it did discover, some had been issues I suspected, whereas others had been complete surprises. Underneath Mind Well being, I had a average affiliation for stress and a low affiliation for ADHD, neither of which shocked me. Underneath Metabolic well being was a “very low” affiliation for prediabetes, which I truly thought could be increased, sadly. I had a average affiliation with osteoarthritis, which made sense, given my household historical past.
