Gut Inflammation Markers Walkthrough - Tiny Health Gut Test

Hi, my name is Emily Serta and I'm a microbiome specialist here with Tiny Health. Today I'm going to talk about the inflammation markers here on the shotgun metagenomics test. If you'd like a general walkthrough of the practitioner portal, we do have a practitioner portal walkthrough in your practitioner resources. Okay, so here we can see, we have a 40 year old adult and I'm going to click into see all metrics. This is where all the shotgun findings show up. I'm going to just collapse these first couple categories and we're going to look specifically at these gut inflammation markers. So if you've watched any of the other videos, you probably know that shotgun testing, we are looking at the entire genome and we're looking at the DNA. In that DNA, we're looking at the microbes that are present and we're also looking at the genes present in the microbiome. So throughout the shotgun test you're going to see a range of like what, what's there in those microbes and then what is the microbiome capable of which is looking at that gene capacity. So here in the gut inflammation markers, knowing that this is an index, that actually means that we're looking at both the microbes present and the genes to kind of give you these reference ranges and these results. So here we're having four different type, four different categories for the gut inflammation. These are all looking at microbially driven inflammation and that's an important distinction. Distinguishing characteristic. Here you could get the protest which has like secretary iga, calprotectin, lactoferrin, lysozyme. Those are looking at inflammation markers in stool chemistry. And the, those can be microbially driven, but they can also be exogenous triggers. Things like food, things like the environment, things from outside the body that may trigger inflammation. Here we're looking at endogenous, really microbial triggers. How is the microbiome contributing to inflammation? So we'll start with the mucus degradation index. Again, index, we're looking at both the taxa or the microbes present and then also the genes present. So here we can see this individual has a little bit of an elevated mucus degradation index that is telling us that the mucus layer in the gut may be being degraded a little bit faster than what we'd like. So again you're going to get your reference range. If the person has tested previously, you're going to be able to see over time what the trends are. Then further down here you can click the about section to learn more about this metric and how it relates to the gut lining. Obviously, we don't want too much mucus degradation to happen because it's going to thin that gut lining and really cause some inflammation there. So you can see associations, and this is associations in our internal data. So when this tends to be too high, has a positive association with constipation, Reported constipation. Some people report diarrhea when this is too high, thyroid disease. So you can click into any of these and see those associations further down in this metric. Remember I said this is both microbes and genes. We don't list the genes because frankly, that's a lot of information. And I don't, I don't know how practical that is. But here we are going to list the microbes that are present that are mucus degraders showing up in this individual sample. And this can be really helpful to look at, especially when I see sometimes that we have like one outlier that's really, really high. It can help to shape your treatment plan to make sure that, well, we're doing something to kind of crowd this particular bacteria down and back into reference range. I do want to note that the yellows here, it does not mean that they're almost out of range. These are indicating the type of bacteria. So a yellow is a variable bacteria. And that means that like Bacteroides, ruminococcus, these are great at making short chain fatty acids. They need to be in our microbiome. They're very healthy being there. But as with any yellow or variable microbe, it's like a commensal. If it grows too far out of range, it becomes problematic. And for any of these, you can click in and see like if this were out of range, which you could see elsewhere in the test as an overabundant spec, you would be able to see what the associations are with it. Again, this is not out of range. It's just yellow because it's, it's a variable bacteria type. You'll notice here that the E. Coli is red. And that's because E. Coli is always a pathogen. We never think of it in really a good light. It's always a pathogen. And so is Streptococcus. Okay, so for mucus degradation index, we would want to think about the microbes there. I'm thinking about the pres of short fan, short chain fatty acid production. I'm looking at disruptive microbes or pathogens in the gut. And I'm also thinking about ways to kind of soothe that gut Lining or to bind any endotoxin that may be leading into this. With these actions over here on the right to go back out, the next marker of inflammation will be hexa lps. So here we're looking at the production of hexa LPS or lipopolysaccharide. These are endotoxins created by bacteria in the gut, usually by disruptive bacteria or those pathogens. Here we can see the species in the sample. Creating LPS in this gut is just Escherichia. So I would probably go back out and see if this is within range. And remember, red doesn't mean it's out of range, it just means it's a pathogen. Pathogen. Hydrogen sulfide index is next in gut inflammation markers. And this one is trending a little bit high. It's almost out of range. So. Right. It's worth taking notice of here again you can see your associations and you can click in to learn more about this. So don't be shy, click in, check things out, get a refresher. Further down we'll see species in the sample. So these are all hydrogen sulfide producers in the gut. And you'll start to see like it looks like there's quite a comfortable coloncella colony here that has really diversified in that gut. And that's interesting. You might want to pop out and do a little research on Colon Sella and what that is looking like. But again, these aren't out of range. Their variable or their pathogens if they're yellow or they're red. So here this one is not quite out of range. If it were, I would also be looking at an sbi. I might be looking at definitely checking out like what disruptives are there. Asking about fiber intake, if there's issue with fiber intake, trying to get a fiber or like a resistant starch or maybe even a phgg to help bring this down and kind of bind some of these microbes. I really like an SBI here to bind some of these microbes and to pull them out in stool. Okay. The last metric in gut inflammation is host DNA. And host DNA is looking at human DNA in the sample. So we are the host to our microbiome. And yeah, this is looking at the, the human DNA. So this can be present when, let's say there is. I've seen this actually up to 30% in like an uncontrolled IBD case, in which case I, you know, we check it again and then I referred to a specialist just to get that checked out. But reasons for the host DNA may be anything from like some blood in the stool, like maybe from a hemorrhoid. I've had some people not not know that sampling during menstruation was not recommended. And we got some host DNA, some human DNA in that sample. This could also be like gut lining sloughing off and coming out in the sample. So it can really, it can tell you a lot of information. Again you can click into about. We can see what high host DNA is related to and it's not, not great stuff. It could be that there's a lot of disruptives. Some of these specific pathogens can really drive high host DNA because they're causing some damage to that gut lining referral maybe to a specialist to get it checked out. Further if these things pop up. Interestingly, high host DNA can also occur when there's real low microbial diversity. And so we're having a lot more human DNA and that maybe there's not a ton of microbes in there, there's not a lot of diversity. So this is definitely one worth, worth looking into checking out its associations here with our internal data are here that you're welcome to look into. Okay, so that is looking at the inflammation markers. Remember for index we're looking at both microbes and genes to develop this index. And then host DNA is the human DNA in the sample. I hope this was helpful again. Reach out if you have any questions, we'd love to help you out.