June 20, 2019
This audio/video overview by Dr. Ally Perlina of Viome goes in depth on my latest gut microbiome testing results from Viome. In this episode, you'll learn how to customize your diet and lifestyle based on the genetics of your gut.
Dr. Perlina is the chief translational science officer at Viome. She leads the Viome team on the development of actionable pathway analytics, functional microbiome profiling, and integration of Viome test results into food and supplement recommendation logic.
Ally came to Viome from working with Dr. Craig Venter at Human Longevity, Inc. She brings over 17 years of industry experience, which include Thomson Reuters, Quest Diagnostics, and several startup organizations where she led R&D groups, scientific product development efforts, and translated knowledge and insights from clinical data analyses into actionable results. She’s a world-class expert in pathway analysis and translational systems biology, which are critical in addressing the complexities of health and disease from different data types in a meaningful holistic way. This cross-functional perspective and passion for making scientifically powered precision medicine insights actionable and scalable has been Ally’s driving force ever since she was investigating gene expression correlates of brain tumors and patient drug response at UCLA while getting her doctorate training in human genetics.
Ally’s ability to “translate” the signals from genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, etc., into something valuable for human health today allows her to lead a diverse team of scientific, clinical, and nutritional experts that, together with data science, make truly personalized Viome recommendations with molecular-level precision
To learn more about Viome and what it is, you can click here or check out these previous resources I've created on this cutting-edge way to test all the bacteria in your gut, along with the postbiotics they produce:
- Article: What Is Viome? How Gut Metatranscriptome & Microbiome Analysis Can Change Your Health
- Podcast: Age Reversing Via The Gut, The Ultimate Anti-Anxiety Pill, Customized Probiotics & More With Billionaire Entrepreneur & Viome Founder Naveen Jain
- Podcast: Poop, Bacteria & You: The Latest Cutting-Edge Science Of The Human Microbiome (& How To Affordably Test Your Own Gut)
- Podcast: The Ultimate Guide To Self-Quantification – How To Test, Track & Interpret Blood, Saliva, Urine, Hair & Poop
This review is a sneak peek into Viome’s next App release, including the new microbiome scores! The content of this video involves a personalized review for Ben Greenfield on June 20, 2019, based on an expert deep-dive into his microbiome data. What Viome productizes in this next release are the most robust features available based on actionability, literature coverage, and individual data patterns. These results and recommendations are unique to Ben and will differ from your own results and recommendations that Viome assesses from your unique microbiome. Viome does not offer personalized data review as a service at this time.
During today's episode, you'll discover:
– My gastrointestinal summary…7:23
- Most important themes to address are several specific functions dealing with digestive efficiency
- Active microbes: There are 134 active microbial species detected in the sample, which means that “richness” is within the average range but may need improvement.
- No active eukaryotes were detected
- There are 2 active plant viruses:
- Prunus necrotic ringspot
- Pepper mild mottle
– Overall microbial richness…9:50
- My score is 134 out of 400; average score (5-95 percentile)
- The microbial could use a boost, but nothing too alarming
- Recommended foods:
- Sauerkraut enriches and diversifies the microbiome
- Walnuts increase microbial diversity
- Olive oil contains MUFAs, which are a group of fatty acids; weight management, increases bacterial diversity, decreases inflammation
- Recommended supplements:
- Probiotics
- Polyresveratrol and cranberry containing supplements
– Metabolic fitness score…18:35
- My score is good, in the 18th percentile of the Viome population (improved from Sep. 2018)
– Inflammatory activity…21:10
- My overall score is AVERAGE
- LPS biosynthesis pathways: average
- Methane gas production pathways: needs improvement
- Sulfide gas production pathways: needs improvement
- Flagella assembly pathways: average
- Biofilm, chemotaxis, virulence pathways: average
- Balance is the goal, not optimal scores in every area
- Although the score is “average” it's on the higher end of the spectrum
– Proinflammatory microbial activity, and active pro-inflammatory pathways that indicate potential GI inflammation…32:40
– Butyrate production pathways and active butyrate producers…45:45
- Overall score is GOOD
- Butyrate is good for metabolic fitness
- Regulates satiety, good for insulin sensitivity
- Goes hand in hand with inflammation scores
- Butyrate is a Short Chain Fatty Acid (SCFA); associated with beneficial functions for the host
- Resistant starches and fibers: resist the digestive system of the host
– SCFA production pathways and active SCFA producing microbes…51:40
- In addition to butyrate: acetate, acetyl phosphate
- Active probiotic in my sample
- Many different pathways that lead to butyrate production
– Recommendations for my diet…55:23
- Bone broth (mammal)
- Oregano
- Jicama
- Turmeric
- Phytometabolizing microbes and active pathways:
– Digestive efficiency…59:20
- My overall score is AVERAGE
- Protein fermentation: needs improvement
- Gas production: needs improvement
- Methane gas production pathways: needs improvement
- Sulfide gas production pathways: needs improvement
- Putrescine production pathways: needs improvement
- Butyrate production pathways: good
- Salt stress pathways: good
- Protein fermenters and active protein fermentation pathways
- Omithine
- Putrescine
- Cadaverine
- Ammonia
- Urea
- Recommendations related to protein fermentation:
- Mung bean sprouts
- Fennel bulb
- Alfalfa sprouts
- Grapefruit
– Hydrogen sulfide production pathways and hydrogen sulfide producing microbes…1:15:50
- Exacerbated by certain foods
- Disruptive to the gut lining
- Proinflammatory if produced in excess
- Sulfate (or sulfite) is deleterious
- Recommendations specific to microbial gas production, particularly hydrogen sulfide:
– Vitamins produced by the gut microbes and detox of the microbiome…
– And much more…
Click here for the full written transcript of this podcast episode.
Resources mentioned:
– Viome (save $250 on your kit when you use this link)
Episode sponsors:
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I’d love to hear if there are things from this test you continue to implement in your diet, and whether you’d still recommend the test (years later) for someone with gut discomfort.
Hi Ben, for true health nerds, you may prefer to do one of the following:
* Thryve
* Ubiome
* XenoGene (Spain)
And use this citizen science site: http://microbiomeprescription.azurewebsites.net/ to upload the report and get alternative recommendation. The major difference is the ability to trace back to the actual publish study (listed on on
US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health) that was the basis of the recommendation. There are over 80K facts from those studies being used by an Artificial Intelligence/Expert System engine.
This citizen science site has also made discoveries on combination of bacteria that produces certain symptoms. For example for Brain Fog: http://microbiomeprescription.azurewebsites.net/Data/SymptomExplorer?algor=q&filter=289
Hi Ben! What do you think about Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squats and Barbell Hip Thrusts? I noticed you didn’t include these in your basic strength workout exercise list from a past article. Are these great compound exercises or would these drift more towards isolation exercises?
Split squats are great for mobility, strength, balance, etc., but can be a pretty complex move for someone just getting started, and form/stability is crucial to avoid injury. Hip thrusts are more isolation, but not bad to include dependent on goals.
Ben,
In one of your previous recent podcasts with Raja Dhir, Co-Founder of Seed, he said that there are only four things you could really take away from a home microbiome test. In fact, he said that the stool sampling gives very little information about your microbiome. What are your thoughts on this?
What would make for an amazing podcast is to have the Dr. Perline of Viome and Raja Dhir from Seed both on the show and let them debate whether this kind of testing is worthwhile.
“Show me the paper and research” as Raja would say…what do you think Ben?
Thanks, Jonathan
I agree there are some limitations to the current testing, but feel you can still get good, actionable data. And as the science/tech continues to improve, you will have comparative data over time.
I love to test myself and like to get data on my body, but I still think gut tests are far far from being usefull, I do them once in a while main reason to support those companies because i think this will be great in the future. I did my viome test and 4 years ago i did I think its called genova test, well same one that Ben did before, I did mainly because I moved to US I started having pretty bad stomach problems. Every time my results were way better than Bens, like my diversity and amount of species were all in green charts, and when i compare to Bens results of my gut are in way better shape than his, but yet i think i have way more stomach issues than he does, not sure if he has any. Also all food recommendation they gave me dont work for me at all, just make me feel worse. I still have more success with elimination diet than with any kind of testing.
Hi Ben,
I’ve done a couple of Viome tests in the past, but more recently have read that what ends up in feces is probably not that reflective of what is in our gut. This was also a topic brought up on your probiotic podcast with the founder of Seed. With that in mind, how much faith do you have in the current testing model of Viome being reflective of what is truly going on where it matters? Thanks, Mike
I think it gives accurate and actionable data for what it currently measures, but agree that there are still some limitations to this type of testing as it doesn't account for what's going on the small intestine. Still provides a good baseline to compare your data over time to and recommendations from the testing has helped many people.