Viome Testing

[Sherpurvis]

Has anyone tried the Viome testing? Naveen Jain is an enigmatic entrepreneur who founded the company, and contends that your microbiome trumps your genes in terms of managing your health. Now, I’m not as medically proficient as most of the people in this forum, but that was fasinating to me. I ordered my kit and look forward to working through this process which identifies all bacteria and all other living organisms in your gut: viruses, archaea, yeast, fungi, parasites, and bacteriophages from a very high resolution (species & strain level). Quantifies the biochemical activities of all gut microorganisms and provides an unbiased analysis. Identifies which metabolites are being produced and which are missing and allows the correlation of microbes and their functions with common chronic conditions, so actionable recommendations can be made. You can get more information at Viome.com, but was interested in knowing if anyone has looked into this supposed breakthrough?

[CarrieS]

I'm interested in other's results with this too. I have a body rash that started on Sept 2nd after a hike. So far, my FM doc is looking at histamines and inflammation. "identifies all bacteria and all other living organisms in your gut: viruses, archaea, yeast, fungi, parasites, and bacteriophages" - Maybe this test can shine some light on what's going on inside where the others haven't.

[jolicoeur]

Hi Sherpurvis

I did a stool test last year and discovered that I had a common parasite.
I ordered Viome test kit but plan to do it in January.

[Jnanney44]

I just got my results back and am a tad disappointed with the results. It offers food recommendations but no explanation as to why. I was surprised to see grains suggested as a food for me to indulge in often. They also suggested I minimize coffee and kale but indulge in saturated fats like dairy and red meat.

Now that I’ve learned my 4/4 status, I’m wondering how to go about using this information. Eating grains and saturated fats doesn’t seem to line up for those us with Apoe4. What do you guys think?

The results also list out bacteria strains, archea, yeast, etc...but don’t offer much insight into what kind of impact they have on your microbiome.

Let me know if you guys are interested in any other specifics!

[circular]

Dave Asprey's Bulletproof podcast just featured Naveen Jain and Viome. COI alert: Dave Asprey is an investor in Biome (which he does state along the way). I found it short on discussing just how the process works beyond references to AI, big data and the like. This page at their website describes it a bit further.

Even if this technology may still be developing, is it really the way of the future? If humans are designing the AI, can it really be that accurate in the insanely complicated world of the human/biome body Is any AI really that accurate? How is AI being used, accepted and relied on today in other areas? They toss out 'AI' like that term alone should inspire confidence, but someone is writing and editing the AI algorithms.

Does anyone have any updates on their experience? My guess is we're 'not there yet', but some day, if we haven't already, we'll cross that threshold in the form of an evidence base in the scientific literature, and it'll be long after it actually became useful to prevent chronic disease.

[apod]

Dave Asprey's Bulletproof podcast just featured Naveen Jain and Viome. COI alert: Dave Asprey is an investor in Biome (which he does state along the way). I found it short on discussing just how the process works beyond references to AI, big data and the like. This page at their website describes it a bit further.

Even if this technology may still be developing, is it really the way of the future? If humans are designing the AI, can it really be that accurate in the insanely complicated world of the human/biome body Is any AI really that accurate? How is AI being used, accepted and relied on today in other areas? They toss out 'AI' like that term alone should inspire confidence, but someone is writing and editing the AI algorithms.

Does anyone have any updates on their experience? My guess is we're 'not there yet', but some day, if we haven't already, we'll cross that threshold in the form of an evidence base in the scientific literature, and it'll be long after it actually became useful to prevent chronic disease.

The future of this tech is very promising. The current state of the art, less so, for my money.

After you sign up for the service, take the test, and run the math, what is it going to tell you to eat aside from "a bunch of organic plants and a little bit of high-quality meat / seafood" ? Perhaps it can make some top-down rule-based recommendations on those plants and steer some people further away from animal consumption, but those recommendations should have quite a bit to do with an individual's lifestyle and metabolic health, which I don't believe the current system can fully factor into the math. And again, it's difficult to imagine the system recommending more than "a bunch of nutrient-dense plants associated with health benefits." If it recommends that I don't eat sweet potato, but I know that I'm going to workout in the morning, I have a low A1C, and can handle it, who do I listen to? Or, if it recommends I eat more apples, but I know that I have a hard time digesting them, who do I listen to? If it recommends that I eat whole wheat, where does that recommendation originate?

Perhaps it can recommend some particular probiotics for some individuals, but I don't think the tech is able to really make a determination on why a particular probiotic would be health-promoting for one individual, but not for other individuals.

As someone who has completed a few Kaggle.com challenges (although admittedly, hasn't earned any medals in competition), the challenge as I see it, is acquiring the data. Lots, and lots, and lots of data. There's maybe some data that suggests that people who eat more fruits have less cardiovascular disease, and those who produce more TMAO (hence, meat + eggs) suffer from greater cardiovascular events. But, imagine if we had 1m data points for how people felt after eating an apple and 1,000 other foods, or how much deep sleep they were able to get after consuming some kind of tea at some point in the day, the recommendations would be so much more relevant and actionable. Imagine if we had 1m continuous heart rate heart-rate variability samples stratified into 10 patterns of eating along with subjective data points of stress / anxiety. From this starting point, we could start to make some really cool predictions. Then, we could train different AI agents to compete against each other with the recommendations for improving scores of subjective wellness + objective markers of health. But we currently don't have any data like this, or better yet, a system in place for incentivizing this sort of data production and mining collaboration.

To be honest, even with amazing levels of data acquisition and prediction modeling, it's fairly difficult to make large lifestyle changes. I wear an Oura ring that tracks every footstep during the day along with my respiratory rate through the night to try to encourage better sleep habits. Quite a lot of data is being crunched in the cloud to try to help me better recover through the night and push through the day. After sunset, it starts spouting advice on winding down. Yet, here I am, after 5 hours of sleep, drinking black coffee with a readiness score of 59. A lot of the time, I think we understand what we should be doing, but we need some really convincing recommendations more than recommendations.

[circular]

Exactly ... so often early health-related technology like this is just researchers craving more data, and they need to sell a product to get it.

[kd7]

I just received my results back. I would have liked more information and not just recommendations. Realize that the results are only as good as the studies inputted and studies vary in quality. When I filled in the questionnaire I was asked my blood type but was not asked my secretor status. As a non secretor I know that has an impact on microbiome and expected that would be factored in.
My results
Avoid foods included brown rice and chestnuts because of expected increased blood sugar response. The other foods on my avoid list were there because I have plant viruses in my gut from them and they have been linked to inflammation. (Very tentative link in one paper I saw. Not a lot of research about effect of plant viruses.) Those foods were onions, garlic, shallots, lemons, bell pepper, hemp hearts, mustard seed and black eyed peas. Somewhere in the recommendations it mentioned don’t have to do all the avoids at once and could even avoid for 4weeks and then introduce. The last time I ate black eyed peas was about 15 years ago - I remember trying some recipes and never found one I liked. If the virus is still in my gut years later then it has plainly found a niche in my gut.
My superfoods are alfalfa sprouts, artichokes, bone broth (mammal), Brussels sprouts, cabbage, endive, green tea, Jerusalem artichoke, kale, leek, oregano, papaya, salmon (pacific wild caught), sauerkraut, spinach, turmeric and sweet potato. Most of these I eat regularly. Some of these it said that my data predicts unlikely to have a blood sugar response. The papaya and sweet potato were recommended to help deal with inflammation. I wonder if the spinach is to encourage my poor oxalate pathway?

Other foods were either enjoy or minimize. They also say they are looking at foods in relation to microbiome so if you are allergic or sensitive to a food then avoid it.

Note:
2 of my pathways needed improving: Inflammatory pathway and Oxalate metabolism pathway.
4 pathways were good: LPS biosynthesis, Methane gas production, Putrescine production and Salt stress. Good score means low production of inflammatory molecules.
Other pathways were average.

It was interesting to see the list of bacteria and plant viruses in my colon - I was at 77th percentile for Microbial richness which is in average range - need 95 and above for good. I will probably try papaya and monitor my blood sugar response.

The results are only as good as data that has been inputted. I will continue using common sense and research when planning my n=1 diet.

[circular]

I just received my results back...

Thanks for the update. Despite the limitations, I find it interesting.

I did a brief overview of some plant virus articles at pubmed. It's at least interesting to see that they're 'a thing', apparently don't replicate in humans (proven?), but can stimulate antibodies. They're also being used and considered in medical applications, where they have purposes in treating disease. It's too late for me to go into any detail, but I definitely want to learn more about the plant virus phenomena.

I guess if the report is completely generated by software, it could be interesting to try following their advice and just see what happens with a repeat test, and also maybe add some other before/after labs like inflammation related ones. It's possible that, while much of it consists of unnecessary recommendations, there are nevertheless legitimate signals worth learning about. The hard part would be parsing that out.

[CarrieS]

I sent in my first Viome test December 2017. I also did stool tests with Genova and Ubiome at the same time (but different collections). Both Viome and Genova found my elusive parasite so I was impressed with that. My biggest takeaway at that time was my low microbial diversity. I eat a ton of home fermented foods and had been taking a rotation of highly recommended probiotic capsules so I had to figure out what was going on. I didn't find the food suggestions all that helpful. My inflammatory activity was on the lower end of average but that was better than expected given my full body response to the parasite.

I sent in my second Viome test May 2019 after successfully figuring out how to keep the parasite under control. The App and amount of information and interpretation of it has changed significantly (and keeps improving). There is better information for how to improve the areas that they test for. It's not personalized but points you in a direction. They show you where your first test was and where you are at the with current test. Results give you scores (organized by Needs Improvement, Good, Average) for: Protein Fermentation, Methane Gas Production Pathways, Putrescine Production Pathways, Uric Acid Production Pathways, Salt Stress Pathways, Bile Acid Metabolism Pathways, Inflammatory Activity, Intestinal Barrier Health, LPS Biosynthesis Pathways, Sulfide Gas Production Pathways, Oxalate Metabolism Pathways, TMA Production Pathways, Metabolic Fitness, Digestive Efficiency, Overall Gas Production, Butyrate Production Pathways, Flagellar Assembly Pathways, Ammonia Production Pathways, Biofilm, Chemotaxis and Virulence Pathways. Microbial Richness is "coming soon". I improved significantly in some areas and went backwards in others.

They give you a list of your microbial activity organized by Bacteria, Archaea, Eukaryotes, Probiotics, & Virus. I personally love this. They didn't show the parasite on the new report but it's an elusive one and my population is probably very small compared to the last test (YAY!). My goal was to improve the good microbes in my colon and my butyrate pathway and I did! I figured out that I wasn't providing the food for them to eat (starchy vegetables, legumes, grains) and wasn't eating the most diverse diet possible so I'd made it point to start incorporating these foods into my diet but also watched my glucose response to help me figure out which of these worked well for my system and those that raised my blood sugar to higher than desired levels. Now I need to figure out why I went backwards in some areas and how to improve them.

My foods to avoid changed a little. Some foods to avoid are still there, some are not (like eggs, eggs are now fine). I still show a virus for sweet bell peppers (I didn't stop eating them) and now have a virus for hemp hearts. My super foods have changed. Maybe this is a change due to microbial diversity.

Overall, interesting stuff. I like the Pathways information (not provided by Genova) and the list of microbes (the Genova list wasn't as complete). I sent in a sample (same collection) to Ubiome at the same time as my second Viome test and will say that the information you get is sparse and wasn't very helpful (to me). I bought these tests on sale.