Viome: microbiome RNA analysis.

[Robert 1973]

I’m interested to hear people’s thoughts on this commercial service offering to analyse people’s microbiome using RNA sequencing, and to give personalised dietary advice based on the results:
https://www.viome.com/our-science

From the wesbite:

Gut Microbiome Composition
Every living organism produces RNA molecules from their DNA. By sequencing all of the RNA in your stool, we can identify and quantify all of the living microorganisms in your gut (bacteria, viruses, bacteriophages, archaea, fungi, yeast, parasites, and more) at the species and strain level. The end result? A higher resolution view of your gut microbiome than has ever been available before.

Gut Microbiome Gene Expression
While identifying the microorganisms in your gut is important, we gain the most insight when we can also understand their function. This is because the microbes in your gut produce thousands of chemicals, called metabolites, that affect your overall wellness. Some of these microbial metabolites can be beneficial to our health, such as vitamin B and short chain fatty acids, while others can be detrimental, such as TMAO, which causes coronary artery disease.

By analyzing the genes that your microbes express, we can identify which metabolites they produce – in other words, we can determine their role in your body’s ecosystem. By following Viome’s diet and lifestyle recommendations, you’ll be able to fine-tune the function of your gut microbiome to minimize production of harmful metabolites and maximize the production of beneficial ones.

There is also a commercial podcast interview with the CEO Naveen Jain here: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/nutrition-podcasts/microbiome-gut-testing/

I have a quite lot of reservations but about this company but I’m very interested to hear what others think. The commercial nature of the podcast was a bit off-putting – and I’m deeply suspicious of anybody charging $300 for unconventional testing and claiming to be doing it not for profit but for the benefit of mankind. I’m also very dubious about whether the technology and science is sufficiently developed to be able to produce clinically useful results from this type of testing yet. And some of Naveen Jain’s apparent lack of uncertainty about the role of the microbiome in disease rang alarm bells for me. That said, I’m still tempted to try it. And I’m convinced that this is an avenue of research which needs to be explored in far greater depth. My guess is that in 5-10 years we will have a far better understanding of the association of the microbiome and disease, but I’m not sure I can wait that long.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

This is quack garbage Robert.
What would be the point of sequencing all the RNA in your stool? You might as well sequence the RNA in your front garden flower beds. Or measure all the trainer shoe sizes in a landfill.

Even if the microbiome mattered to disease, which I doubt, this would be a completely useless way to look at what matters.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

It’s a popular money spinner with no real quantifiable proof that what they are doing isnt just giving non correlated general diet advice.

No one has even mapped out what healthy looks like at a species level let alone test it versus the thousands of variables at play, so how would they even know what advice to give? Even if analysing poo was the right method, which is highly debatable? Their claims just in the extract above are highly misleading and unlikely to be true.

I wouldn’t waste money on this personally, or anybody that claims they know what to do with diet/microbiome and how it makes people “healthy”.

I haven’t seen anything compelling yet and I’ve been reading research on microbiome/gut health for quite a few years now. If they had the answers they claim, there would be more to see in terms of research. So far ....not so much, other than the equivalent of ...we know there are mammals in Africa and they might be getting up to all sorts of things if we could just get over there and have a proper look.

I was going to say something witty about bears and woods...but it’s quite late.

 

[Robert 1973]

This is quack garbage Robert.
What would be the point of sequencing all the RNA in your stool? You might as well sequence the RNA in your front garden flower beds. Or measure all the trainer shoe sizes in a landfill.

Even if the microbiome mattered to disease, which I doubt, this would be a completely useless way to look at what matters.

Would the RNA in someone’s stool not reflect their microbiome?

NB I should perhaps have added that, as far as I can see, the company makes no claims about being able to treat disease.

 

[Trish]

I think even if you know the details of your microbiome, there's not sufficiently developed science to be able to tell people how to change their diet to alter the balance, and even if you could do that, how that might or might not affect your health. I suspect just eating a healthy balanced diet with lots of vegetables and sufficient fibre would be all they could reasonably advise.

I remember reading about research on microbiomes in groups of people whose diet changes significantly with the seasons where they observed the microbiome gradually adjusted according to which foods were dominant in the diet in that season - the changes didn't reflect any health problem, just a natural adjustment according to what the particular microorganisms feed on.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

I half suspect that we may end up doing a lot of research over the next ten years to just find out that our microbiome changes with the food we eat and that it’s quite robust and adaptable over a 4-8 weeks period. I am interested in the research, but a bit dubious as to whether it will lead to microbiome tailoring or that we will discover something remarkable that affects medical conditions. I suspect it may eventually add proof that a balanced varied diet with a reasonable amount of fibre in it is a good thing...but hey we know that now already....it just might make it more ‘sciency’ I suppose.


I recently read a report about whole grains and a new bit of research that now shows the exact mechanisms as to how this is beneficial (as oppose to knowing its good but not why). Every bit of research leads to greater understanding and it makes sense the microbiome has a role to play in digestion. That’s why I keep up with it anyway. I get a bit disappointed when science is commercialised before it’s actually found the answers though and this seems to be a good example.