For a few hundred dollars you can put your poo in an envelope and post it off to a laboratory. In return you\u2019ll get a report (sometimes generated by AI) outlining your food sensitivities, metabolic fitness, and what pathogens or fungi you\u2019re harbouring.<\/p>\n
These at-home gut microbiome tests or \u201cGI mapping\u201d kits are frequently promoted by influencers as a way to \u201chack your health\u201d and \u201ctake control\u201d through analysing some of the trillions of organisms that live in your digestive tract.<\/p>\n
But how much can an at-home gut test really tell you, and are they actually worth doing?<\/p>\n
Even experts struggle to interpret at-home microbiome tests<\/p>\n
Prof Rupert Leong, a gastroenterologist and microbiome researcher based at Macquarie university hospital, is increasingly seeing patients alarmed by gut microbiome reports they don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n
Leong said depending on what is being analysed, gut microbiome testing can be \u201cvery powerful and accurate\u201d in detecting microbial markers. But interpreting what those markers mean for an individual remains a major challenge, and different labs vary in their methodology, leading to differing results.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still in the infancy of understanding how to interpret them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If a gut microbiome test is ordered by a specialist doctor or accredited dietitian with a clear clinical reason, sent to a reputable lab, and interpreted by someone trained to make sense of the results, it can be genuinely helpful.<\/p>\n
Leong recently saw a patient with inflammatory bowel disease and rectal bleeding who had already undergone standard medical tests. The microbiome results, in that case, helped confirm dietary issues and guide further treatment once simple and important issues had been ruled out.<\/p>\n
But these cases are the exception, he said.<\/p>\n
A healthy mix of organisms in one person could be problematic in another; \u201cThe same organism has different species and acts differently in different individuals,\u201d Leong said.<\/p>\n
It means for the vast majority of people who order these tests online, and who may be curious about their gut health or wondering about their symptoms or foods to avoid, \u201cthere are no translatable benefits\u201d to ordering a test, he said.<\/p>\n
Temporary dietary changes, medications or illness could all affect the results, and what those results actually mean for an individual\u2019s health outcomes isn\u2019t well understood.<\/p>\n
False alarms can cause distress<\/p>\n
One of Leong\u2019s patients who took a commercial home test came to him panicking about bowel cancer after the report suggested she had certain inflammatory markers.<\/p>\n
Leong said a colonoscopy remains the definitive test to investigate bowel polyps and cancers. The free home bowel screening test issued by the Australian government, which looks for hidden blood in stool, is an evidence-based way to detect early warning signs of bowel cancer and may prompt follow-up testing, including a colonoscopy.<\/p>\n
And while some home gut microbiome tests claim to offer insights into metabolism or inflammation, \u201cvery few experts can use these results appropriately at present,\u201d Leong said, including gastroenterologists.<\/p>\n
This is because clinicians aren\u2019t trained to interpret the complex outputs the tests generate, the science is still developing, and there aren\u2019t clear guidelines on what to do with the information.<\/p>\n
The illusion of control<\/p>\n
At-home microbiome tests are spruiked by online influencers as a way of empowering people who want more insights into their health. But Dr Erica Zurawski, an assistant professor in environmental studies, said this encourages consumers to internalise health responsibility while giving their personal data to large for-profit companies.<\/p>\n
Her research has examined how<\/a> direct\u2011to\u2011consumer microbiomeare often pitched \u201cas a wholesale solution to myriad health issues when, in fact, they oversimplify the complexity of the inner workings of the gut, its malleability, and the impact external factors have on it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It makes people feel they are doing something wrong, \u201cwhile the underlying issues that cause poor gut health,\u201d including the influence of harmful industries and government policies, are \u201cside-stepped,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis complexity gets smoothed over and ignored<\/a> \u2026 testing kits fail to account for things such as stress, pollution, or access to meaningful health care to address adjacent health issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Back to basics<\/p>\n So how can you actually support gut health?<\/p>\n Leong says: \u201cA diverse diet, high in fibre\u201d is a sensible place to start.<\/p>\n Zurawski adds that governments have a responsibility to address the broader social and environmental conditions that influence gut health, including poverty, housing, pollution, and access to affordable, nutritious food.<\/p>\n If you are experiencing gut symptoms or concerns, Leong recommends seeing a qualified dietitian or GP before jumping to expensive, at-home testing.<\/p>\n Melissa Davey is Guardian Australia\u2019s medical editor<\/p>\n Antiviral<\/a> is a fortnightly column that interrogates the evidence behind the health headlines and factchecks popular wellness claims<\/p>\n Share your experience<\/p>\n Share your experience<\/p>\n What health trend\u00a0do you want examined?<\/p>\n Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For alternative ways to get in touch securely please see our tips guide<\/a>.Show more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a few hundred dollars you can put your poo in an envelope and post it off to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-248274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}