What Is Viome? See Exactly What Viome Gut Microbiome Testing Results Look Like.

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Hi, Ben. Welcome to viome. We're glad you're on this journey with us. Now that you've done your first biome testing, let's review what your first round of results and recommendations look like on the viapp. Let's start by looking at the results.

The first thing you'll see is your wellness index. Now, this index takes into account all of the results of your testing and the answers to all of your questionnaires. And it indicates your current state of overall wellness. Now, it's not surprising that your wellness index is in the optimal range, so you're obviously doing something right. But it's nice to see that you left yourself a little bit of room for improvement. And the idea is that the next time you should have that needle all the way over to the right. Now, the best way to improve your score is to follow the recommendations that have been created specifically for you. And we'll review those recommendations shortly. Let's look a little closer at what makes up your overall wellness index score. It's made up of your gut score, which you can see you're also in the green and have left yourself a little bit of room for improvement as well. Now, your gut score takes into account the health of your microbiome. It includes looking at your diversity, inflammatory markers, the organisms that are present, whether there's some good guys or bad guys and what they're doing. And it's like I said, looking quite good for you. Your metabolic score is about as good as it gets. And it shows that your body's able to handle that nutritional challenge that you took with your metabolic intelligence test really well. You're very efficient at energy metabolism and you're meeting your nutritional requirements. It also suggests and shows that you're not really being exposed to harmful substances in your environment. Now, to obtain this high of a metabolic score, you have to be eating the appropriate foods for your individual microbiome and for your cellular phenotype. So your current diet is working well for you. Now, remember, what's right for you may not be right for the next person. Your body score is still in the green, but looks like you have a bit more room for improvement. Now, this score takes into account your overall body shape, which we know is good, but also symptoms and whether your current lifestyle choices are appropriate for you. Now let's delve into your gut intelligence results. This is where viome's state of the art technology really shines. Now, VIOME sequences all of the RNA in your microbiome sample and this allows us to determine what organisms are present with a very high resolution, a resolution down to the strain level. We can also see all organisms, all bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes, and viruses. Now, before now, all other technologies that have been available to us can see only bacteria and can identify them only down to the genus level. And as you can see, there's actually genus, species and strain. The RNA actually also allows us to see the activity of these organisms and the functions that they're actually performing. For example, we can whether your microbes are metabolizing the proteins and carbohydrates that you're eating, or if they're making specific vitamins that your body needs, for example, vitamin B6. You can click on the Learn more and it'll tell you a lot more about your gut results and what they mean. So you'll see that every organism has its own card, and on the left of the card is your average activity or the average activity of that organism in your microbiome. And it's compared to the activity of all the other organisms. So in this case, the activity of ethalolaginins is 21.55%. That means that 21.55% of all of the bacterial activity is coming from that particular organism. And then you can see what the average activity of that organism is in other populations. You can see it in the everyone population, which includes all of the people that have ever had biome testing. And you can see it comp to a healthy population, which is actually a group of people that have undergone, met very rigorous criteria for what we consider healthy. So they need to have normal body weight, they can't have had any illnesses, they can't have any symptoms, they shouldn't be on any medications, and they can't have had antibiotics in the past year, since even a single course of antibiotics will affect a person's microbiome for up to a year after taking them. Now, remember that everyone's microbiome is unique and that whether an organism is beneficial or harmful can be dependent on the other organisms that are present. But looking at the difference in activity of an organism and comparing it and seeing the difference between healthy and the everyone populations can give you a sense of whether that's a good guy or a bad guy and its effect in the microbiome. To finish up, you can see the little icons at the bottom. These will indicate, if you see them on the card, they'll indicate whether it's a good guy, whether it's a probiotic bacteria or whether it's a rare bacteria. And we'll look at this in a little bit more detail. So getting back to the my gut, you can see the different categories at the top. The archaea, the bacteria, the eukaryotes and the viruses. And you can actually explore each of these at different levels. So you can look at the phylum level, which is a very high level. You can explore the genus level, which is what we mentioned most other people do. You can get down to the species and the strain level. So the first thing I want to point out in your microbiome is that you have something unusual. You have three species of archaea. Now, archaea is kind of considered an ancient organism. It's actually an extremophile. And in the environment, it's one of those that's found in very extreme environments. So it's the kind of organism that you would find in the boiling hot sulfur springs or something like that. We do know that they are found in people's microbiome, in their gut microbiomes, and that the Amerindian and European populations seem to have more of them in their microbiomes than the North American population does. So our North American lifestyle seems to be eliminating these organisms from our microbiome. Now, Ben, with your lifestyle, it's not surprising that you have a significant activity of archaea in your gut. So let's look at the bottom organism, the Methanobrevibacter smithii. It's actually the most common archaea that we see in people's microbiomes. And in this one, you can see that healthy people have a higher activity than the regular population, which implies that it's beneficial. In fact, it's something we call a methanogen, and it takes waste products from the other bacteria and it metabolizes them further into methane. This actually allows for a more efficient extraction of energy from the food that you eat. And it's likely why we see high activity of this particular organism in elite athletes. Now, you also have a high amount of two other archaea species that seem to be lower in the healthy population. There have been some studies that show that these methanogens can slow down intestinal transit time and can cause constipation. And it may be one of the reasons why you're experiencing these symptoms. Let's look at a couple examples of bacteria, other bacteria and what they mean. So we can look at the bacteria one and go to the species level. You can see we're going to go down to one that I want to point out called Rose Barria hominis. You can see there's, you have a lot of different types of bacteria as we scroll down.

And it is.

A little bit.

Here we go. So it does have a little G, meaning that it's a good guy. And it's nice to see that you have some activity of this bacteria since not having it is associated with irritable bowel syndrome and dysbiosis. This particular bacteria makes something called butyrate and butyrate acts to keep the lining of your gut healthy. It's also anti inflammatory and it gets absorbed into your bloodstream and can change your gene expression. These bacteria eat resistant starches, specifically one called fructooligosaccharides. Now these starches are found in things like bananas, onions, garlic, asparagus, asparagus, jicamas, leeks and artichokes. And you'll find we want to encourage the growth of this organism. So some of those foods will be in your recommendations and we'll get into that in a little bit. Now, the eukaryotic organisms, as opposed to bacteria and archaea, they have a nucleus and organelles like mitochondria. So humans are actually eukaryotes and other organisms like yeast and parasites are also eukaryotes. Now, Ben, you can see here that you have three different species of Blastocystis. Now, Blastocystis is a eukaryote and in some people these can be associated with gastrointestinal symptoms. So I would suggest that you see your healthcare provider to have this confirmed and treated if necessary. You also have a yeast species that's fairly common. It's brewer's yeast and it's also found in the probiotic called floristor. Your activity is much lower than most other people we have tested, as you can see. Now one of the reasons that you might have lower amounts of that Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is that when we look at the viruses, one of the species of your viruses is called saccharomyces 20s RNA narnavirus, and this actually infects Saccharomyces. You also have one called Streptococcus phage 2617. And that.

Is a virus that infects the bacteria called Streptococcus. So collectively these are known as bacteriophages. And they play a big role in shaping your overall microbiome, since they can, when they infect these bacteria, they often kill them. You'll also notice that you have a couple of plant viruses. You have tomato mottle mosaic and pepper mild motto virus. These are viruses that can cause diseases in plants and are found in the human. And the finding that they're actually replicating in the human microbiome is pretty new. No one's ever looked at this before, so not as much is known about their effect. But we do know that some of these viruses, for example the pepper mild model virus, can cause immune reactions in people and symptoms like itching, fever and stomach pain. Now, following the activity of these viruses over time will be really important to see how, by supporting your microbiome, by following your personalized recommendations, how we will affect those viruses. Diversity is another very important measurement. The graph here shows both richness and diversity. So richness is the total number of species of bacteria that are present in your microbiome, and diversity is the amount of each of these species. So, for example, you could have a hundred different kinds of bacteria that are active in your gut. This would be the richness. Now, of those hundred, you could have hundred of one of them and only one of all of the others, which would be a low diversity. Or you could have 100 of all of them, which would be a high diversity. Now, diversity, high diversity is associated with a very healthy microbiome and thus your overall wellness. So you want to aim for as high a diversity as possible. And you can see even in the healthy population, when you compare yourself, you're on the very highest end of the diversity of the people we've looked at. And obviously when we compare the everyone population, everyone has a much, you know, more people have a lower diversity.

By looking at the good guys, you can see if you have any of the bacteria that we consider very healthy.

Remember that this list is not complete and that you're going to have many other good guys in your gut that don't show up on this list. You can also see if you have any probiotic organisms in your gut. Now, these are ones that are found in commercially available probiotic supplements. So you can check and see if what you're taking is actually active in your gut. And in your case, you only have one of them called enterococcus.

Which is, of course, since it's a probiotic, it's a good guy. My RNA shows the amount of human RNA in your microbiome sample. Now, this usually comes from the cells that are lining your gut. So if there's inflammation or an infection, more cells will be shed and there will be more human rna. You can see that you have an average amount of human rna, so you don't have any high amount of inflammation present in your gut. The rare bacteria show the organisms that are active in your microbiome but have low or no activity in the majority of the population. So everybody is going to have some rare bacteria, since we all have microbiomes that are really as unique as our fingerprints. In fact, there's actually no one species that's been found in every single person tested.

Now, let's go back and look at your personalized recommendations. These recommendations are determined specifically for you. They're based on the results of your GI testing, your MI testing, as well as the answers to your questionnaires. Now, at viome, we take seriously the fact that one man's food is another man's poison. There is no one diet that's right for everyone. And based on your microbiome and your genetics, every person requires a unique ratio of macronutrients and specific foods. This ratio and the specific foods that are optimal for you will also change over time, depending on how your environment affects your microbiome and your epigenetics. So the goal is to optimize your energy production, optimize the utilization of nutrients, and of course, the composition and function of your microbiome. By following these recommendations, we want you to move you or move your wellness index as far into the green as possible and ultimately have you look and feel the best that you possibly can. Now, as you look at your recommendations, you will notice four categories of food. The indulged foods. The ones in the green are the foods that you want to eat a lot of. They're the ones that are chosen just for you to balance your body and microbiome to maximize your wellness. You want to aim to eat at least some of these foods every day. You want to indulge on them, but remember to stop when you're 80% full. The enjoy foods. The ones in the blue are the ones that are very good for your body and your microbiome. In addition to the indulged foods, they will form the foundation of your diet. Again, aim to eat foods on this list every day. Then the minimized foods. The ones in the yellow are ones that you can eat once in a while. They're okay for you, but they're not really going to be supporting your body to reach optimal functioning. You can eat them once in a while, but you should limit the amount you eat to a couple or a few times a week. The avoid foods now are. On the other hand, the ones in the red are the ones that are harmful to you and your microbiome. You want to do your best to completely avoid them and replace those Foods with the indulge and the enjoy foods. Now, on the overview page you're going to see a summary of your recommendations. There will often be some specific interpretations and suggestions at the top. And in your case, Ben, you see a description of some of the concerning organisms in your gut. Keep an eye out as these will be continually updated as time goes on. The next thing you will see is what type of metabolizer you are and then the macronutrient ratios that will optimally support your individual metabolism to make you to make your metabolism the most efficient it can be. And in your case, you're already an efficient metabolizer, Ben.

It's still so these are your macronutrient ratios that you want to follow. And in your case you'll need a higher amount of protein and good quality fats than a lot of other people do. So it looks like you've already been eating a diet that's pretty close to what your body needs now. Despite that, it's still important to listen to your body and to monitor how you feel. Pay attention to your hunger level, your energy and your mood. One to three hours after eating. If you're eating the appropriate foods according to your recommendations, you should feel great on all of those levels and not be hungry. If you don't, you need to adjust your ratio slightly. If you're under significant stress on any particular day, you may need to add more protein and fat for that day. Now remember that fat has more calories, there is more calorie dense than proteins or carbohydrates, and also that proteins often most protein foods often contain some fat. So when you look at the actual volumes of food on your plate, it will look like this. The majority of the volume will actually still come from non starchy vegetables. Now if you know that you're allergic to certain foods, that will take precedent over the other foods in your recommendations. So you'll still want to avoid those foods even though they may be on your enjoy list.

Now how you prepare your foods you can see at the end of the tab there is also really critical. You will find some tips here under food preparation. Things like soaking nuts, grains and legumes is important and preparation can actually change a food from harmful to beneficial for you. So there's some tips there that you probably want to pay a lot of attention to.

As we go back, you can see a breakdown. So from the overview you can see a breakdown of the foods under the larger macronutrient categories. So you can see that carbohydrates are made up of grains, vegetables, fruits, and then beverages. Salt and sweeteners are also under carbohydrates. If we go back to the vegetables, you can see that there are certain foods in your indulge list that will be beneficial for that species. We discussed in your results the rose berry hominis, and that was a little bit low in you, so we've included those in your indulge category. So artichoke and asparagus specifically for that microorganism. You can also explore other types of food in the same category. So the fruits and beverages and you can see the fats, which is made up of nuts and seeds and also oils. So things like coconut oil, flax oil and olive oil will be very beneficial for you as well as you can eat most of the other oils. You can look under proteins, which are made up of meats, seafood, legumes, dairy, and then other types of protein.

And then the foods to avoid. This list of foods to avoid contains foods such as sugar, candy and white bread that are harmful to everyone, as well as specific foods that you should avoid. But some of those foods may be okay for others, and in your case, it seems like dairy products are on that list that other people would be fine with dairy products.

So this is a brief overview of what VIOME is currently offering. Remember that we're on a journey together and your recommendations and interpretations will continue to be refined and delivered to you. Stay tuned for more from vi, our intelligent, interactive chatbot, and a whole lot more explanations for each food and organism, as well as specific supplement recommendations. The critical thing will be to follow how your microbiome and wellness index change over time as you follow the recommendations. We're glad that you're on this journey with us to use the power of molecular biology and artificial intelligence to truly create personalized wellness. Thanks.