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You took Thorne's Gut Health Test, but what do your results really mean for your health? Vice President of Medical Affairs Amanda Frick joins Chief Medical Advisor Robert Rountree as they analyze and discuss their own results on this special episode.
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During this episode you’ll learn about:
Resources for topics mentioned in this episode:
Products mentioned in this episode: Gut Health Test with Microbiome Wipe, FloraMend Prime Probiotic®, Metabolic Health, Basic B Complex, Undecylenic Acid
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Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. You can also learn more about the topics in the episode by checking out the latest news, videos, and stories on Thorne’s Take 5 Daily blog.
Click here to watch the video for this episode.
During this episode you’ll learn about:
Resources for topics mentioned in this episode:
Products mentioned in this episode: Gut Health Test with Microbiome Wipe, FloraMend Prime Probiotic®, Metabolic Health, Basic B Complex, Undecylenic Acid
Subscribe to More Content
Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode. You can also learn more about the topics in the episode by checking out the latest news, videos, and stories on Thorne’s Take 5 Daily blog.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
This is The Thorne Podcast, the show that navigates the complex world of wellness and explores the latest science behind diet, supplements, and lifestyle approaches to good health. I'm Dr. Robert Rountree, Chief Medical Advisor at Thorne and functional medicine doctor. As a reminder, the recommendations made in this podcast are the recommendations of the individuals who express them and not the recommendations of Thorne. Statements in this podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Hi everyone and welcome to The Thorne Podcast. This week we're gonna do something special. We're gonna explore all of the insights and offerings behind Thorne's Gut Health at-home test kit. To help you follow along, in addition to our regular audio episode, we're also releasing the video from this recording as well, so be sure to check that out on Thorne.com or on our YouTube page, so you can follow along as we go over our results. Joining me to talk about this test is my friend and colleague, Thorne's Vice President of Medical Affairs, Dr. Amanda Frick. Welcome.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Thanks, Bob. Nice to see you again.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, Amanda, you and I have both taken the gut health test. We're gonna walk our listeners through the process and the results in a bit, but why would somebody want to take this test? Who do you recommend it for?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think... I mean, you could take it for a lot of reasons. I think the primary reason that someone would take the gut health test is because they have some kind of issue with their digestion. Maybe, maybe their bowel movements are irregular or they have bloating a lot of times after they eat. Or just things aren't quite right with digestion. I think that's probably the primary reason why most people would take it. Personally, I think there's a lot of other reasons you could take it. You could support your weight management or your immune system or if you have female health issues. But I do think primarily people are taking it because they have digestion challenges.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So how would you frame the kinds of things that you'll learn from the test. When you talk to a client, what would you tell them? “This is what you're gonna get if you do this test?”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that the best way to look at is you'll get an idea of what the overall picture of the balance of the microbes and yeast and fungi are in your gut.
You'll have a little better idea of how that stacks up against the normal population as far as your immune function. We should get some information in there about whether there's signs of inflammation in your gut, and so I think you're getting a good picture of what could be going on or some ideas of what you could be doing about it, and I mean, that's the best part.
What makes the Thorne test difference is you're actually, you're actually getting product and lifestyle recommendations after. You can take a bunch of info about what's going on there, but Thorne gives you some, some actual workable and personalized solutions that you can help to make things better.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now, I know in the, in the old days, the golden days of medicine, you would say, “I wanna do this stool test because I am looking for a particular” ... What we call a pathogen, a, you know ... “A microbe that could be causing a serious problem, diarrhea, you know?” Dysentery, etcetera. How is this test different in terms of the technology and, you know, what we're... What we're putting together with the information? How is the information different?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that, that you're limited when you're doing a test like that. So, you're looking for that specific thing or you know what you're looking for, and so you're seeking out that information.
And what makes the Thorne Gut Health Test different is that it's giving you all of the information. So, the genomic sequencing is giving you a picture of everything that's in there, instead of trying to identify if that specific thing is there. So, you'll find out what you need to know if you're, if you wanna know something specific.
But that would be more a targeted test that you'd do with your physician. And this is giving you a better overall picture of not just bad bugs, good bugs, all kinds of things that are, are happening in your gut.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I have to say that I just saw a headline from a study that came out of Arizona State University where they took autistic kids and they gave them fecal transplants, so they didn't actually call it that.
I thought it was very clever that they didn't put that in the title, but I read the paper and it was pretty clear that's what they were doing. I think they called it a microbial, human microbial transplant. And then the paper pointed out that they did this new technology for analyzing the gut microbiome of these kids after they'd had the transplant and they said, this new technology was called metagenomics, shotgun metagenomics.
Now I thought, well, that sounds familiar. Isn't that what the gut health test from Thorne has been using for years?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, yeah. So, this new technology is something that, that is a little bit old hat for Thorne.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is. I think we're one of the first to market, if not first to market for especially a consumer available test that had shotgun genomics.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And what are we gonna learn from this shotgun genomics? Again, that's different than another DNA test? Cause, as I said, in the old days of medicine, we'd do a culture, we'd look for Salmonella or Shigella. Something like, you know, a bad bug. And then DNA-based test came out. But they were using something called PCR.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Which is, you know, not bad. But then they were also doing something called 16S sequencing. They were looking for a particular gene. How was shotgun metagenomics different? And why is it so special?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think the, the most basic thing about it that's so simple is that it, you don't have to know what you're looking for.
You're getting everything. So, it's not, “Do you have this thing present and seeking out a confirmation of, of something that you're looking for in particular?” It tells you everything that's there. So, you're getting a picture of the bacteria, the fungi, the yeast, and then human DNA so you can identify whatever type of DNA is found in the sample rather than just trying to identify against a known, or looking for a particular variable.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, I, one analogy I heard in, in a description of this is, it'd be like if you're doing a survey of a neighborhood in New York City, and basically you went through a neighborhood and you only look for a certain ethnic group, right? So, you said, “Okay, I'm gonna go through this neighborhood and I'm just gonna see how many people are here from Puerto Rico, right?” And that's all you looked for. But what if it was an Italian neighborhood? Then you'd miss all the Italians, right? Or you'd miss, you know, whatever other group was there. And so, I think this, the same thing is true for our stool is we've got thousands of different kinds of bacterial species that we could be looking for.
So, if we don't set ourselves up in the beginning to say, “We're only gonna look for one thing for the bad bugs, and we're gonna miss out.”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. I mean, I think it's gonna be part of, we're constantly learning. I, I don't know what the exact metaphor is, but I saw something about, “We know as about as much about our gut microbiome as we do about like the deep ocean.”
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
There's just... We don't even, we don't even know! So, we don't know what we don't know, so we still have to figure it out. So, this is just giving us a snapshot picture of everything instead of only what we know.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And how are we analyzing information? I mean, it's obviously a lot of information that's coming through here.
Is somebody sitting down in a basement looking at the numbers and going, “Well, I think this is what's going on.” Or is there, is there another level? That's obviously a leading question, but, you know... How, how does this, you know, I, I obviously couldn't analyze it all by myself – so what, what kind of assistance do we have in putting that information together?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, we have the, we have an AI machine learning system, so it's getting smarter all the time. And every sample that we get, it's learning a little more and getting a little bit better. And I'd hate to admit it, but you know, that's making it a little bit smarter than the humans that could be in a basement looking at it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
But yeah, so we, not only do we have a more sophisticated technology to identify what's there, we have a more sophisticated technology to analyze it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So why don't we talk a little bit about what actually is in the kit, what the process is, what it looks like. I mean, people when you say, “I'd like you to do a stool sample,” I'm sure that conjures up in all kinds of thoughts about what’s involved –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It does.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
– About what's involved, you know, there's a yuck factor and, “Do, do I really wanna do that?” What's unique about the Thorne Gut Health Test?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that's the best part about the test. So, in, in my years in practice, I can't even remember how many times I've done a gut health test. A stool collection test, and how many patients I had to do one. We called it a, a French Fry Box collection.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yes! Yep, yep.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
– So a little bit hands on –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, what makes you... And you remember it, there's a reason you remember it.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Well, you can't forget it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yep.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that, that, that helped my therapist referrals go up. So, so what's great about this is you just do what you would normally do. So whatever, you know, hopefully your daily activity in the restroom. You’re just using a different tool. So there's a, a wipe collection method, which is unlike any other collection method I've ever done or seen. So, you just use the restroom as you normally would.
No French Fry Box, no collecting the actual output –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
No aiming necessary!
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Nope. No worry about missing. And then you just use the provided wipe instead of normal toilet paper. So, you're using our wipe method and then you just add it into a liquid media where it dissolves. And the other great thing about it is the liquid media is basically salt water, so you don't have to worry about chemicals or some of the... There's some creepy stuff and a lot of the jars that you get in the, in the French Fry Box –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
In the typical still collections, yes. From aldehyde, I think is in one of them. Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. It's kind of creepy –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Don't spill it on your hands or you might be able to see what your bones look like!
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Well, that’s extra data. We charge extra for that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, extra data.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
So, then that makes it a lot easier. So, there's gloves, gloves provided. So, you just go about your normal activity, add the wipe into a little bottle of solution and then you're done. It's that simple.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Wow. So, how does that work? You're putting a wipe in a, you're wiping yourself, and then you're putting it in a liquid and a bottle? How is that even possible that, that would be able to, to analyze DNA from your stool? Do you have a few words about just the technology? That's, I mean, this is pretty advanced technology, obviously.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is, I'm probably not the expert on the exact wipe technology. We have really fancy people in New York that would be the experts on that. But it was developed specifically by people at Thorne HealthTech. So, it's not available anywhere else. The wipe dissolves in the saltwater. And so, the saltwater stabilizes the DNA so it can make it through transit without an issue, without chemical.
And then when you're, when it's finished, the wipe just dissolves away. So, all you have is stabilize sample in saline solution.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay. So, is it this is a question for people that might be doing the collection. If they, they put the wipe in the solution, do they have to expect it to be 100% dissolved for this to work? Or is that okay if there's little fragments of it?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
No, it would be okay to have fragments.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Ok. I, I mentioned that cause that's what happened when, when I did it.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And the results came back just fine. So, you know, the important thing –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Thankfully, the wipe has no DNA, so you don’t have to remove it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
That's exactly right. So, there’s... The wipe is basically an inert material that's not gonna interfere with the test.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, so this in and of itself is a huge breakthrough, this use of this wipe, right?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
– In terms of convenience, the science involved is really, It's phenomenal technology.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is super exciting.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
As much as a stool collection can be exciting, this one is very exciting.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
This is exciting. And you're right, I have used the French Fry Box for collection. I've put these carefully designed little wraps that go over the toilet seat. I mean, there's all kinds of other versions of that out there. And this could not be beat for convenience and ease and complete lack of the yuck factor.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think another great thing is because it's DNA analysis, when you do the traditional method, you have to gather samples from different areas of the, of, of the sample and you're trying to get different pieces of it –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Put your little spoon here and your little spoon there –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Mix it up! And this, because you, because it's doing that. The genomic sequencing, you need only the tiniest sample. So even the smallest bit that you can get on the wipe is all you need to get a good sample.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Cool. And typically, how long does it take to get the results back? What would you say is an average turnaround time for this?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think it's about 10 days to two weeks.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, so they really sped it up. I gotta say –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
You can pause me if you want. I honestly can't remember!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, there, I mean, there's some, it's, you know... I think the, the variability is an important thing to point out is that a typical lab that does this kind of sampling is average about six weeks, right?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I, I think we're a little bit less than that. Thorne's a little bit less than six weeks. So, I think people just need to know this is, it's not an overnight thing, right? You're not gonna find out tomorrow and, and it's important to point that out because this test is not for somebody who's got an urgent situation.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right, right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
This is a wellness test that for people who have chronic gut problems, it isn't necessarily the test that you would do if you came back from Mexico and said –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Definitely not. You don't wanna be waiting for that one.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's not, you know, gonna be your first option. Although, the information that you get from this test is just as accurate as that test you might do at a local hospital.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. And having –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Go ahead.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I think, I mean, when we were talking before about why you do one or the other, that's why they still have a place or another test that you do because you know what you're measuring against. You can do it a lot faster to identify some kind of pathogen or infection, quote, infection.
Whereas this one, because it's giving you all of the data, it takes longer. And so it has that longer-term use.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I've also gotta say that I, I recently was in that situation with a patient where I had to get that information right away. And that rapid test now costs something like $800, at least. At least.
So, it's a very... It's getting that information... You know, in two to three days, you're gonna have to pay for that –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
– To be able to get it. But it's, the technology actually isn't even as advanced as the metagenomics testing that's used in the gut health test.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. It's so, I mean, basically the only downside you have with a Thorne Gut Health Test is it takes about five to six weeks to get results.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay, I think we need to take a short break and when we come back we'll show you our results and we'll walk you through what they mean or what we think they mean. For those of you listening on audio only, this next part is. We're, we’re gonna switch over to the video option on YouTube or on our, our website would be the most beneficial.
So, check out the links in the show notes.
Are you ready to take the guesswork out of good health? If you are, then Thorne makes it easy with simple health tests that offer deep insights into what's going on inside your body. Choose from multiple tests that analyze for sleep, stress, weight management, biological age, the gut microbiome, and more.
Thorne’s at-home health tests measure your personal biomarkers, providing detailed insights that help you identify potential health risks and specific areas of improvement. Plus, each one provides individualized recommendations for diet, exercise, and supplementation. Visit Thorne.com to learn more about Thorne's health tests and to start your new health discoveries today.
That's T-H-O-R-N-E.com.
And we're back. So now it's time to see what the gut health test has to tell us. We've both taken our tests. We've both gotten an email notifying us that results are ready. Then we logged into Thorne.com. And the first thing you see is a notification that says, “Your test results are ready.” So, Dr. Frick will go first and then we'll talk about her results, and then we'll swap over.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Okay.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, Amanda, let's see what you got here.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Sure. So, on my screen here, I've, I've logged in and you can see I've done a few other tests in the last year or so. But right here on the top, it's telling me my results already. This one is my gut health test. And so here we are. Now you can, now you can take a sneak peek.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, the first thing we see is a normal pathogen screen. Now, a few minutes ago we were talking about a test that you might do if you came back from a trip and you had dysentery or something like that. That's what you're gonna be looking for in that test is pathogens in this test. Also includes pathogens that, and in fact all of them, all the big ones. So, tell us what that means.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
So, I think that's why we put it front and center. So, if, if people are doing this for wellness or digestion concerns and a pathogen did come up, we would redirect back to, to additional medical care. But that's why I clicked and it scrolled down. So, this is what we're looking at in a pathogen screen.
These are some of the things that you'd be worrying about for like travelers' diarrhea or food poisoning or some other things like that. Like you can see some things that look familiar here. So, this is what they're looking for in that pathogen screen. And then the cool thing about it is if you wanna understand what they all are, you can hover over any of them and it tells you, you know, if, if I happen to have one of these that was abnormal or did show up in my pathogen screen, I can read a little bit more about what happens or what kind of symptoms that would cause.
But as you can see, there are things like this, like maybe bloody diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. These are the things that would be like red flags. We'd wanna know right away, which is why that comes up first on this test.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Can you say what it means when it says your bacteria level is normal? What, what's that? That... What does that imply exactly?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that this is just saying that the amount there is not indicative of a problem. I'm not sure that it's an absolute zero. But there isn't enough there or there's not an indication of genetic presence that would be problematic.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
In other words, and I think this is a really important point, a lot of the things that we consider to be really harmful bacteria may be in healthy people in very low levels, and this technology, this metagenomic testing is so sensitive that it can pick up very, very small amounts of these things, and some of them might actually have been on the food that the person ate the day before.
There's bacteria and viruses in all the food that we eat. You eat a salad, you're gonna be getting bacteria. And so, this test is so sensitive, it'll pick it up. And the important thing is we have a cutoff level.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, with the cutoff level and this is a really critical issue – the cutoff level says, “If you have below this amount, it's not significant. It's not worth worrying about.” I will say, I've seen people get tested through other companies that do DNA testing, not the shotgun metagenomics, but the DNA testing will say, “You've got Clostridioides Difficile.” And they go, “Oh my God, I need the antibiotics! I need to be treated.”
And that's not the case. Right? There has got to be a good cutoff level, and you say, “Below that it's normal. It's normal.” So normal here means something that's pretty significant.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I think this section is helpful too. The... Exactly what you're saying. So although it's come back normal, it's not diagnostic, but things that are screened for are typically present in the gut.
So, it's only when it's elevated or has, there's too much of it that can cause a problem.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay, great. All right, so what's the next thing that you look at?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
So, then the second section, we go through things with the, we call gut pillars. So, they're the, the major items that we wanna look for, the things that are important in an overall functional gut health analysis.
And so, the first one here is digestion score.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And yours looks good.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. She’ll, she'll, she'll take some good news that you're, you're above the optimal range. And then if you wanna know, how that was determined, it was based on a balance of bacteria.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. So, this one's looking at ammonia production and amino acid degradation, and so, “Is the bacteria that's present in your gut indicative of somebody that may have issues with digestion or have poor digestion?” And mine looks normal.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great. Okay. That's encouraging. And the next section was inflammation.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yep. Inflammation score is the second one. So even though I do have one that's popping up at the beginning that says it can raise levels of inflammation in your gut, overall, my score is good. So, the balance of things that may be an issue and the things that are really helping to maintain or reduce inflammation in my gut are balanced to the point that my overall score is in an optimal range here.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now this would seem to be the place where the artificial intelligence machine learning aspect is really important because we're not just looking for one guy. We're not just looking for Salmonella. We're not just looking for Clostridioides, right? We're looking at the overall mix of bacteria, which are really hundreds, if not thousands of species.
So, I don't know. My brain's not big enough to be able to like look at all those different ones. And I should say that there is the option of downloading what's called the community report, which lists every single thing that was found. And when you see that, you go, “Oh my God, okay, I'm gonna go back to the analysis because you know, when I see what's under the hood of this machine, it can be quite overwhelming.”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, this is where the AI comes in handy cause the AI is saying, “Well, this guy's up a little bit, this is up a little bit.” But it gets balanced out by other bacteria. Am I correct in saying that?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yes. Yep. Exactly. I think what's really special about this too is in a traditional stools sample collection, they're, they're testing a metabolite, they're testing for calprotectin, or they're, they're testing something specific that would indicate inflammation. But really what the Thorne test is giving you is, “Are the bacteria in your gut helping you to balance or create... Are they helping create calprotectin or are they not?” And do you have things that are helping balance inflammation against what isn't?
And so, rather than just, “Yeah, you have, you have a metabolite of inflammation,” or not, you know what the population in your gut looks like, and whether that's... You're at a higher risk to develop that inflammation because of that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
If somebody had inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn's or ulcerative colitis, what would you expect this score to show?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I would expect that the score would show higher. It would be on this higher end here. And it could be for lots of reasons. One person with colitis or Crohn's could have completely different bacteria that are showing up in their picture. So, in the end, they all have inflammation, but they may have inflammation for different reasons, which is exactly why, you know, the same treatments aren’t... Unless you're using straight anti-inflammatory. If you really wanna treat their gut, they, they would have different things they would need to help balance that system out.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great. Very helpful. So, what next?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Then the third pillar is gut dysbiosis, which this one doesn't look as friendly on my score here, but dysbiosis really just means bacteria out of balance.
So, my score is a little high, indicating that I have some bacteria out of balance, or it's a high risk for dysbiosis, and people with dysbiosis could have a bunch of different symptoms or not have any. But really what it's looking like is, so they, the scores are showing here, like the little arrows say up, like, look, if, if you look at this Akkermansia one, it's staying up, but that doesn't mean my Akkermansia is high. My Akkermansia is actually low. So, this little indicator button is showing that that has increased my score in a bad way. So, the little red arrow shows that, that that increased my dysbiosis score. And in this case, higher score is not good.
But it increased because something that's protective against dysbiosis or something you'd want to have is low. So, you're getting both sides of the picture. I mean, you wanna have... People think of E. coli, like a bad thing, but Escherichia as a genera in your gut is something that you need.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yep.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
And you have to have it –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It's a normal player.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
– It's just doesn’t belong in places that that aren't in your gut and that's when it causes a problem. But having too much of it is not great. So, I have a little bit too much of that. So, it's a bit of both. You can see I have things that are a little too high and things that are too low, and so that's increasing that total dysbiosis score.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And already I'm starting to think, “Okay, low Akkermansia muciniphila, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. Those are both really good guys, right? For at least for most situations, right? I mean, there's no microbe that's 100% good all the time for everybody, but for most people, we want to have more of these. So that would be something you might wanna put on a shelf and say, “Okay, when I finished this test, I'm gonna come back and say, ‘Okay, I need to do something to correct that.’”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. This is, this is actually one of the biggest pieces that I acted upon after taking this test.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay, great. What else?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Then the next pillar, pillar number four, is intestinal permeability. So, this is what people think about when we say something like “leaky gut.” To me, what that means is I'd be more likely to be reactive to foods that I'm eating or bacteria in my gut, or other things that, that belong staying in my gut, but they're getting out and then getting into my bloodstream and then causing my system to react to them. And so, my score looks good, thankfully, but this is again, based on the bacteria balance in your gut and not a direct measure of things like you might see in some other traditional tests.
But it looks like here that I have some good guys that are high, maybe one that's, that's a little bit too high. But in an overall balance, my intestinal permeability score is good.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, wanna point out, again, you can also test permeability by giving people a solution of Lactulose mannitol [test] and seeing if you're absorbing molecules that are normally not absorbed cause they're too big, like the lactulose that coming out in your urine or not.
So, people might think, “Well, that's the only way to test for permeability.” This is testing to see if you have the predisposition to permeability, which you know, you, you might call it a virtual test, a virtual test for intestinal permeability, and I think it's quite comparable. I think it's comparable. There's a lot of variability in doing that lactulose mannitol test. You know, permeability can go up and down depending on what you've eaten.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Depending on the time of day. And this is telling you more, whether you have the propensity, the tendency towards that.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Which is more important that I would wanna know because even if it's high and I don't experience symptoms of it, and if, if my score were high, I might wanna pay a little more attention to it or maybe even pre-treat or do some things to help prevent some kind of imbalance that would lead to that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great. Okay. What else have we got here?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Then nervous system. This one's really interesting, which you're not gonna see a lot in other traditional tests, but it's, it's giving some information about the bacteria balance in your gut and whether it would lead to gut-brain axis miscommunication. So, we talk about the like gut-brain communication all the time, and it's kind of like a hip thing we've been talking about for a few years.
But I don't normally see that in a traditional stool test. So, this is giving me an idea of whether the bacteria imbalance in my gut would have a higher association with things that would cause a gut-brain imbalance. And this one's saying my score's a little bit high, so I may have a higher risk or a need for improvement to try to keep from mood imbalances happening. In my sample, it's suggesting that I maybe have a propensity to depressed mood.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Cool. So that could be really helpful for somebody that's got a mood disorder to realize maybe they could change their gut microbial profile and would make them feel more optimistic and upbeat.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I mean the, the answer isn't always just neurotransmitter support, right?
That those things all happen in your gut. And so having the right bacteria to make, I mean serotonin production majority happens in your gut, and I think people sort of miss that boat. So, knowing what that bacteria balance is in your gut, you're helping to treat the cause a little better than just taking something to fix the serotonin endpoint.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great. All right, so why don't we skip to more of an overview of like, what, you know, what all this is showing. Yeah, so this is a, this is a good place to look at the overview. Your beta diversity is 80%. Now you... Isn't... Aren't high scores good?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
So the... I know, even I had to go back and study this one! I was like, we need to process.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
What this is saying is that my score is high, which means it's a higher percentage away from normal or other healthy adults. So, it means I'm farther away from what sort of that middle ground is or what other healthy people who are reporting healthy guts or people who don't have other health issues or symptoms and what their gut bacteria balance looks like.
And mine's kind of far away from what the other people's look like, which is why the higher score is not necessarily great.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, the diversity means you're diverging from a, from a healthy population, at least from the current database that we have of what a healthy population looks like.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Exactly.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I, I'm guessing, I'm just guessing, but that low Akkermansia and low Faecalibacterium prausnitzii may have a lot to do with this.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I think that we're coming back to the same picture there,
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Which is good news because there's, there's something we can do about that.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Because there are options.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
There are options. So maybe we could, just in the interest of time, cause obviously there's a lot we could cover here, maybe we could skip to where all this stuff gets put together in a recommendation?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Sure. Let's see.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I think that's more at the very end...
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think we're getting there. Here we go.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. So you're on a good diet, it says.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Well, yeah that’s nice...
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Nice to know.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I’ll take that!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, maybe you should take some prebiotics.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I think I actually, not sure prebiotics are in my recommendation, but we can see here. It's saying to add nuts and seeds for me.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
And then my, oop you’re right, got prebiotic. Thankfully, I love prebiotic disc, so I didn't have to purchase that or have had an additional recommendation, but that's what I got. So, I got a prebiotic, which, which is what's great about the Thorne prebiotics. It can help rebalance. Not only can Prebiotic + help you get your good bacteria in line, it can also help reduce unwanted bacteria.
So that's kind of a double whammy. A lot of other prebiotics are just fiber and they can just feed what you've got for good guys. But because of the unique ingredients in Prebiotic + you can help rebalance. And then I got –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Am I correct that the... One of the primary targets of the the Effusio prebiotic is E. Coli?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And that's, I remember your E. coli was high.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yep. It was high.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, this would help, like it's not knocking out all your E. coli, it's just bringing it into balance.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. Exactly.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
And then it's the, the cool thing is it's like eating up the E. coli and then making it digestible for my good guys. So, it's turning bad –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. It's turning them into food.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Bad things into food, yeah. Super great.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
And a probiotic which we have a few different Thorne options and then onto Undecylenic Acid. So that one's added there probably to help with some of those other ones that were high and weren't looking so great there to help rebalance.
And then Metabolic Health is for a systemic support, and I think that goes back to that beta diversity score. My beta diversity score is high, which makes me more likely to have weight management issues. And some metabolic function not being optimal. And so Metabolic Health is in there to help support that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yes. Great. Okay. Any other closing comments that you might have about what you learned from this test?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
No, I think that I, I was happy to see, you know, everybody likes a little validation. I like my good news that some things are looking good here. And I do like that I have the ability to work on some other things so, so much good research coming out.
About Akkermansia, and we're looking into that as a company a little bit more, so that was really interesting for me to see as well. That was my favorite part.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
You know, it seems like one of the big things we're learning about microbiome testing is that it's as much about what's missing as it is about the bad guys that are causing problems.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Exactly.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. “The Missing Microbes,” I believe is what –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Sounds like a Nancy Drew novel!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Dr. Blaser. “The Missing Microbes.” Okay. So now we're gonna look at my score, which is from the test that I did about a month ago. You know, I would say I have a pretty good digestion overall, so, my main interest was making sure I didn't have any bad bugs that, you know, picked up in various travels or from you know, drinking water up in the mountains.
I never drink from streams anymore here in Colorado cause we have Giardia. But you know, I do drink well water and you never quite know. So, I wanted to know if I had any bad bugs and just what the overall picture looked like. So, the first score was my overall digestion. And as you pointed out, Amanda, that looks at the bacteria involved with ammonia production, which is meaning breaking down protein.
How are you at breaking down protein and amino acid degradation? And I said, you know, overall things looked pretty good. So that was, that was encouraging. My inflammation score was low. Also encouraging and very similar to yours. I had some elevation in a couple of less desirable bugs, Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonas.
And those are bacteria that have a lot of lipopolysaccharide or endotoxin in the membranes of the bacteria, but then that gets balanced out by genes associated with, with calprotectin, which actually helps to fight off the bad guys. So again, thank goodness for artificial intelligence.
Because if I just looked at these bacteria on my own, “Oh, this is, high. This is low.” I don't know what all that means, you know without kind of plugging it into the computer program. I wonder if you have any comments about that.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Oh, I don't really. Just what we had discussed when we looked at mine, I just think it's, it's, it's funny because we have one that's the same, one that's completely different. But we ended up with similar, really similar, similar scores.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Yeah. So again, analysis is basically where it's at.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Is, you know, what, what does the overall picture look like? Now when I look at gut dysbiosis again, I'm a little bit on the high side, not terribly high, but I'm high because I've also got Escherichia higher than normal.
It's normal to have some, but higher than normal. One thing that decreases it is Bifidobacteriam. And I do take a probiotic, so I'm assuming that that helps. I also eat goat yogurt, which I –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I love goat.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Love goat yogurt. Yeah, I eat it all the time. And I think that's got some pretty good probiotics in it.
One bacteria that I'm just learning a lot about recently is Blautia. And you know, again, if I wanted to dive into that, I can click on those, those letters and it'll tell me a little more about it.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that the interesting thing about yours too is that you, you have a lot of everything, so you have a bunch of high, I don't see any that's like low or, “Oh, something's missing.”
You got a whole bunch of stuff, but you have a bunch of them that maybe are too many or too, too much in number.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, yeah. So. Little bit too much of this, a little bit too much of that. But, but again, no pathogens
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
No bugs that I would say, “Well, I really need antibiotics.”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It wasn't that long ago that I had to take some antibiotics for a, an infected tooth.
Maybe you say, “That's too much information! I don't wanna know that!” But you know what? You get old enough, these things happen.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
They do.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I wonder if this might have been the consequence of that. That perhaps I knocked out some of the good guys and the bad guys overgrew a little bit.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. Very possible.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, the good news is that it didn't seem to affect my permeability. I'm, I'm well within the optimal range and there are some bacteria, some of the same ones that contribute to the dysbiosis that also contribute to an increased permeability score, but also it's lower because I have protective amounts of calprotectin.
So, we, I wanna clarify that one. Calprotectin is a substance made by immune cells that is part of your normal defense system in the gut. So, it's normal to make some calprotectin when you do a stool test looking specifically for calprotectin. You almost always will find some and I'd actually be nervous if people didn't have some.
It's just when it's off the chart that you go, “Oh, this could be a bad problem.”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So you want adequate amounts of protected, but not too much. And that's what this is saying is that, “You've got species that make it. This is good. And that helps protect you.” Again, nervous system was good. So, I guess that means I will never have a mood disorder as long as I take the proper probiotics –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
You hope!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yes, I will. My beta diversity was 35%. Re- remind me what yours was, weren't you at like –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
80.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
80%. Oh, okay. So, third, the lower diversity score, that means I'm a little bit closer to the healthy population? Is that... Am I correct?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yes, but then they, they're still considering it high. So basically, yours is high. Mine's like skyrocket high. They just... Don't use descriptive terms.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay. Yeah. They don't go. “Whoa. Whoa. This one. This is a ringer. What are we gonna do?” Okay. So that means I could do something to help bring me closer to the norm of healthy people.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And then something we didn't talk about with yours is my immune readiness score says, “Well you could use a little improvement there.” You know, maybe there's a couple of things like Klebsiella and Streptococcus might be advantageous to bring those guys down.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
That section's interesting too, Bob. Yours all just say “high” again. I didn't see anything on yours that said low –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Just the one, yeah. Nothing low, but I do have good bact... the bifidos [Bifidobacterium] seem to be open to me.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Good guys. Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Yeah. So I'd say that's gotta be because of the yogurt and the probiotics that I'm taking. And then as in the case with yours, all my pathogens were normal, very encouraging. I know that with a previous stool test that I used to do from another company, it seemed like everyone had Blastocystis!
Right? They’d all come back. But those, that was a microscopic test. So they... Somebody was looking at it and going, “I see these little round things. I think they're Blastocystis.” The DNA test is so much more accurate and if the DNA test says, “We don't see it,” then it's probably not there.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Which means we were over-diagnosing Blastocystis hominis.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Ooooh.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh yeah. That, I mean, for years, and I, I don't know, I've treated a lot of people for it in the past and I wonder how many people really needed it, if that, or if that's really what their problem was. So, it's good to have this newer technology out there. So again, all the way... Giardia is normal! That's... Living in Colorado, that’s a really good thing.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
That’s a win!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
That’s a big win. You know, because it is out there. So, what were the recommendations for me? As with you, I had too much of the E. coli, so the Effusio prebiotic was recommended. The FloraMend Prime! Love that probiotic, very well-studied probiotic and the Metabolic Health!
So, we had very similar kind of recommendations. Again, bergamot and curcumin. And also B Complex.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
A B vitamin.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now why would, how could we use the stool test to know if somebody needs B vitamins? Could you explain that to me?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. We have a section here. We do have data about certain bacteria helping your gut produce B vitamins.
And so, you must have had indicators that were low. So, you must have had a B, a B vitamin. You had a low bacteria somewhere, they just didn't show up in the other scores. But you must be lacking some that are helping to produce B vitamins. So, we're recommending B vitamins for you.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, this has been a really interesting tour!
Clearly, we're just scratching the surface of what you can do here. As I mentioned, you can also download the community report. So the... For the people who are real geeks, they can download this community report and it tells you everything they found in there. And having looked at that on a few patients, I can tell you, you can spend a long time kind of plowing through it, looking for specific things.
So, we're just scratching the surface here of what's possible with this particular test. Well, I think that's all the time we have for this particular episode. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. If people wanna follow more of what you're up to and the kind of things that you're developing for Thorne, where would they go?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think we put a lot of information on Take Five Daily. So, I would watch Take Five Daily. You can sign up for Research Extract emails, so those come out in a Take Five Daily post for consumers. And then at physicians, we have a, a different set of Research Extracts that you can watch.
And then I think, you know, watching The Thorne Podcast and watching the blog in social media, you'll hear where some of the new things are coming.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Terrific. We're really looking forward to that. So that was Thorne's Vice President of Medical Affairs, Dr. Amanda Frick on Thorne's Gut Health Test. And I hope you've really got the sense that this is really advanced, very sophisticated analysis that's being offered here.
As always, thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like what you heard, tell a friend about our show and please tune in again. Thanks for listening to The Thorne Podcast. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app of choice.
If you've got a health or wellness question you'd like answered, simply follow our Instagram and shoot a message to @thornehealth. You can also learn more about the topics we discussed by visiting Thorne.com and checking out the latest news, videos, and stories on Thorne's Take Five Daily blog. Once again, thanks for tuning in and don't forget to join us next time for another episode of The Thorne Podcast.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
This is The Thorne Podcast, the show that navigates the complex world of wellness and explores the latest science behind diet, supplements, and lifestyle approaches to good health. I'm Dr. Robert Rountree, Chief Medical Advisor at Thorne and functional medicine doctor. As a reminder, the recommendations made in this podcast are the recommendations of the individuals who express them and not the recommendations of Thorne. Statements in this podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Hi everyone and welcome to The Thorne Podcast. This week we're gonna do something special. We're gonna explore all of the insights and offerings behind Thorne's Gut Health at-home test kit. To help you follow along, in addition to our regular audio episode, we're also releasing the video from this recording as well, so be sure to check that out on Thorne.com or on our YouTube page, so you can follow along as we go over our results. Joining me to talk about this test is my friend and colleague, Thorne's Vice President of Medical Affairs, Dr. Amanda Frick. Welcome.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Thanks, Bob. Nice to see you again.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, Amanda, you and I have both taken the gut health test. We're gonna walk our listeners through the process and the results in a bit, but why would somebody want to take this test? Who do you recommend it for?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think... I mean, you could take it for a lot of reasons. I think the primary reason that someone would take the gut health test is because they have some kind of issue with their digestion. Maybe, maybe their bowel movements are irregular or they have bloating a lot of times after they eat. Or just things aren't quite right with digestion. I think that's probably the primary reason why most people would take it. Personally, I think there's a lot of other reasons you could take it. You could support your weight management or your immune system or if you have female health issues. But I do think primarily people are taking it because they have digestion challenges.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So how would you frame the kinds of things that you'll learn from the test. When you talk to a client, what would you tell them? “This is what you're gonna get if you do this test?”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that the best way to look at is you'll get an idea of what the overall picture of the balance of the microbes and yeast and fungi are in your gut.
You'll have a little better idea of how that stacks up against the normal population as far as your immune function. We should get some information in there about whether there's signs of inflammation in your gut, and so I think you're getting a good picture of what could be going on or some ideas of what you could be doing about it, and I mean, that's the best part.
What makes the Thorne test difference is you're actually, you're actually getting product and lifestyle recommendations after. You can take a bunch of info about what's going on there, but Thorne gives you some, some actual workable and personalized solutions that you can help to make things better.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now, I know in the, in the old days, the golden days of medicine, you would say, “I wanna do this stool test because I am looking for a particular” ... What we call a pathogen, a, you know ... “A microbe that could be causing a serious problem, diarrhea, you know?” Dysentery, etcetera. How is this test different in terms of the technology and, you know, what we're... What we're putting together with the information? How is the information different?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that, that you're limited when you're doing a test like that. So, you're looking for that specific thing or you know what you're looking for, and so you're seeking out that information.
And what makes the Thorne Gut Health Test different is that it's giving you all of the information. So, the genomic sequencing is giving you a picture of everything that's in there, instead of trying to identify if that specific thing is there. So, you'll find out what you need to know if you're, if you wanna know something specific.
But that would be more a targeted test that you'd do with your physician. And this is giving you a better overall picture of not just bad bugs, good bugs, all kinds of things that are, are happening in your gut.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I have to say that I just saw a headline from a study that came out of Arizona State University where they took autistic kids and they gave them fecal transplants, so they didn't actually call it that.
I thought it was very clever that they didn't put that in the title, but I read the paper and it was pretty clear that's what they were doing. I think they called it a microbial, human microbial transplant. And then the paper pointed out that they did this new technology for analyzing the gut microbiome of these kids after they'd had the transplant and they said, this new technology was called metagenomics, shotgun metagenomics.
Now I thought, well, that sounds familiar. Isn't that what the gut health test from Thorne has been using for years?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, yeah. So, this new technology is something that, that is a little bit old hat for Thorne.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is. I think we're one of the first to market, if not first to market for especially a consumer available test that had shotgun genomics.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And what are we gonna learn from this shotgun genomics? Again, that's different than another DNA test? Cause, as I said, in the old days of medicine, we'd do a culture, we'd look for Salmonella or Shigella. Something like, you know, a bad bug. And then DNA-based test came out. But they were using something called PCR.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Which is, you know, not bad. But then they were also doing something called 16S sequencing. They were looking for a particular gene. How was shotgun metagenomics different? And why is it so special?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think the, the most basic thing about it that's so simple is that it, you don't have to know what you're looking for.
You're getting everything. So, it's not, “Do you have this thing present and seeking out a confirmation of, of something that you're looking for in particular?” It tells you everything that's there. So, you're getting a picture of the bacteria, the fungi, the yeast, and then human DNA so you can identify whatever type of DNA is found in the sample rather than just trying to identify against a known, or looking for a particular variable.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, I, one analogy I heard in, in a description of this is, it'd be like if you're doing a survey of a neighborhood in New York City, and basically you went through a neighborhood and you only look for a certain ethnic group, right? So, you said, “Okay, I'm gonna go through this neighborhood and I'm just gonna see how many people are here from Puerto Rico, right?” And that's all you looked for. But what if it was an Italian neighborhood? Then you'd miss all the Italians, right? Or you'd miss, you know, whatever other group was there. And so, I think this, the same thing is true for our stool is we've got thousands of different kinds of bacterial species that we could be looking for.
So, if we don't set ourselves up in the beginning to say, “We're only gonna look for one thing for the bad bugs, and we're gonna miss out.”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. I mean, I think it's gonna be part of, we're constantly learning. I, I don't know what the exact metaphor is, but I saw something about, “We know as about as much about our gut microbiome as we do about like the deep ocean.”
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
There's just... We don't even, we don't even know! So, we don't know what we don't know, so we still have to figure it out. So, this is just giving us a snapshot picture of everything instead of only what we know.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And how are we analyzing information? I mean, it's obviously a lot of information that's coming through here.
Is somebody sitting down in a basement looking at the numbers and going, “Well, I think this is what's going on.” Or is there, is there another level? That's obviously a leading question, but, you know... How, how does this, you know, I, I obviously couldn't analyze it all by myself – so what, what kind of assistance do we have in putting that information together?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, we have the, we have an AI machine learning system, so it's getting smarter all the time. And every sample that we get, it's learning a little more and getting a little bit better. And I'd hate to admit it, but you know, that's making it a little bit smarter than the humans that could be in a basement looking at it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
But yeah, so we, not only do we have a more sophisticated technology to identify what's there, we have a more sophisticated technology to analyze it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So why don't we talk a little bit about what actually is in the kit, what the process is, what it looks like. I mean, people when you say, “I'd like you to do a stool sample,” I'm sure that conjures up in all kinds of thoughts about what’s involved –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It does.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
– About what's involved, you know, there's a yuck factor and, “Do, do I really wanna do that?” What's unique about the Thorne Gut Health Test?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that's the best part about the test. So, in, in my years in practice, I can't even remember how many times I've done a gut health test. A stool collection test, and how many patients I had to do one. We called it a, a French Fry Box collection.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yes! Yep, yep.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
– So a little bit hands on –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, what makes you... And you remember it, there's a reason you remember it.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Well, you can't forget it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yep.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that, that, that helped my therapist referrals go up. So, so what's great about this is you just do what you would normally do. So whatever, you know, hopefully your daily activity in the restroom. You’re just using a different tool. So there's a, a wipe collection method, which is unlike any other collection method I've ever done or seen. So, you just use the restroom as you normally would.
No French Fry Box, no collecting the actual output –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
No aiming necessary!
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Nope. No worry about missing. And then you just use the provided wipe instead of normal toilet paper. So, you're using our wipe method and then you just add it into a liquid media where it dissolves. And the other great thing about it is the liquid media is basically salt water, so you don't have to worry about chemicals or some of the... There's some creepy stuff and a lot of the jars that you get in the, in the French Fry Box –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
In the typical still collections, yes. From aldehyde, I think is in one of them. Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. It's kind of creepy –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Don't spill it on your hands or you might be able to see what your bones look like!
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Well, that’s extra data. We charge extra for that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, extra data.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
So, then that makes it a lot easier. So, there's gloves, gloves provided. So, you just go about your normal activity, add the wipe into a little bottle of solution and then you're done. It's that simple.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Wow. So, how does that work? You're putting a wipe in a, you're wiping yourself, and then you're putting it in a liquid and a bottle? How is that even possible that, that would be able to, to analyze DNA from your stool? Do you have a few words about just the technology? That's, I mean, this is pretty advanced technology, obviously.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is, I'm probably not the expert on the exact wipe technology. We have really fancy people in New York that would be the experts on that. But it was developed specifically by people at Thorne HealthTech. So, it's not available anywhere else. The wipe dissolves in the saltwater. And so, the saltwater stabilizes the DNA so it can make it through transit without an issue, without chemical.
And then when you're, when it's finished, the wipe just dissolves away. So, all you have is stabilize sample in saline solution.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay. So, is it this is a question for people that might be doing the collection. If they, they put the wipe in the solution, do they have to expect it to be 100% dissolved for this to work? Or is that okay if there's little fragments of it?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
No, it would be okay to have fragments.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Ok. I, I mentioned that cause that's what happened when, when I did it.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And the results came back just fine. So, you know, the important thing –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Thankfully, the wipe has no DNA, so you don’t have to remove it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
That's exactly right. So, there’s... The wipe is basically an inert material that's not gonna interfere with the test.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, so this in and of itself is a huge breakthrough, this use of this wipe, right?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
– In terms of convenience, the science involved is really, It's phenomenal technology.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is super exciting.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
As much as a stool collection can be exciting, this one is very exciting.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
This is exciting. And you're right, I have used the French Fry Box for collection. I've put these carefully designed little wraps that go over the toilet seat. I mean, there's all kinds of other versions of that out there. And this could not be beat for convenience and ease and complete lack of the yuck factor.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think another great thing is because it's DNA analysis, when you do the traditional method, you have to gather samples from different areas of the, of, of the sample and you're trying to get different pieces of it –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Put your little spoon here and your little spoon there –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Mix it up! And this, because you, because it's doing that. The genomic sequencing, you need only the tiniest sample. So even the smallest bit that you can get on the wipe is all you need to get a good sample.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Cool. And typically, how long does it take to get the results back? What would you say is an average turnaround time for this?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think it's about 10 days to two weeks.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, so they really sped it up. I gotta say –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
You can pause me if you want. I honestly can't remember!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, there, I mean, there's some, it's, you know... I think the, the variability is an important thing to point out is that a typical lab that does this kind of sampling is average about six weeks, right?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I, I think we're a little bit less than that. Thorne's a little bit less than six weeks. So, I think people just need to know this is, it's not an overnight thing, right? You're not gonna find out tomorrow and, and it's important to point that out because this test is not for somebody who's got an urgent situation.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right, right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
This is a wellness test that for people who have chronic gut problems, it isn't necessarily the test that you would do if you came back from Mexico and said –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Definitely not. You don't wanna be waiting for that one.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's not, you know, gonna be your first option. Although, the information that you get from this test is just as accurate as that test you might do at a local hospital.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. And having –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Go ahead.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I think, I mean, when we were talking before about why you do one or the other, that's why they still have a place or another test that you do because you know what you're measuring against. You can do it a lot faster to identify some kind of pathogen or infection, quote, infection.
Whereas this one, because it's giving you all of the data, it takes longer. And so it has that longer-term use.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I've also gotta say that I, I recently was in that situation with a patient where I had to get that information right away. And that rapid test now costs something like $800, at least. At least.
So, it's a very... It's getting that information... You know, in two to three days, you're gonna have to pay for that –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
– To be able to get it. But it's, the technology actually isn't even as advanced as the metagenomics testing that's used in the gut health test.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. It's so, I mean, basically the only downside you have with a Thorne Gut Health Test is it takes about five to six weeks to get results.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay, I think we need to take a short break and when we come back we'll show you our results and we'll walk you through what they mean or what we think they mean. For those of you listening on audio only, this next part is. We're, we’re gonna switch over to the video option on YouTube or on our, our website would be the most beneficial.
So, check out the links in the show notes.
Are you ready to take the guesswork out of good health? If you are, then Thorne makes it easy with simple health tests that offer deep insights into what's going on inside your body. Choose from multiple tests that analyze for sleep, stress, weight management, biological age, the gut microbiome, and more.
Thorne’s at-home health tests measure your personal biomarkers, providing detailed insights that help you identify potential health risks and specific areas of improvement. Plus, each one provides individualized recommendations for diet, exercise, and supplementation. Visit Thorne.com to learn more about Thorne's health tests and to start your new health discoveries today.
That's T-H-O-R-N-E.com.
And we're back. So now it's time to see what the gut health test has to tell us. We've both taken our tests. We've both gotten an email notifying us that results are ready. Then we logged into Thorne.com. And the first thing you see is a notification that says, “Your test results are ready.” So, Dr. Frick will go first and then we'll talk about her results, and then we'll swap over.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Okay.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, Amanda, let's see what you got here.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Sure. So, on my screen here, I've, I've logged in and you can see I've done a few other tests in the last year or so. But right here on the top, it's telling me my results already. This one is my gut health test. And so here we are. Now you can, now you can take a sneak peek.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, the first thing we see is a normal pathogen screen. Now, a few minutes ago we were talking about a test that you might do if you came back from a trip and you had dysentery or something like that. That's what you're gonna be looking for in that test is pathogens in this test. Also includes pathogens that, and in fact all of them, all the big ones. So, tell us what that means.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
So, I think that's why we put it front and center. So, if, if people are doing this for wellness or digestion concerns and a pathogen did come up, we would redirect back to, to additional medical care. But that's why I clicked and it scrolled down. So, this is what we're looking at in a pathogen screen.
These are some of the things that you'd be worrying about for like travelers' diarrhea or food poisoning or some other things like that. Like you can see some things that look familiar here. So, this is what they're looking for in that pathogen screen. And then the cool thing about it is if you wanna understand what they all are, you can hover over any of them and it tells you, you know, if, if I happen to have one of these that was abnormal or did show up in my pathogen screen, I can read a little bit more about what happens or what kind of symptoms that would cause.
But as you can see, there are things like this, like maybe bloody diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. These are the things that would be like red flags. We'd wanna know right away, which is why that comes up first on this test.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Can you say what it means when it says your bacteria level is normal? What, what's that? That... What does that imply exactly?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that this is just saying that the amount there is not indicative of a problem. I'm not sure that it's an absolute zero. But there isn't enough there or there's not an indication of genetic presence that would be problematic.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
In other words, and I think this is a really important point, a lot of the things that we consider to be really harmful bacteria may be in healthy people in very low levels, and this technology, this metagenomic testing is so sensitive that it can pick up very, very small amounts of these things, and some of them might actually have been on the food that the person ate the day before.
There's bacteria and viruses in all the food that we eat. You eat a salad, you're gonna be getting bacteria. And so, this test is so sensitive, it'll pick it up. And the important thing is we have a cutoff level.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, with the cutoff level and this is a really critical issue – the cutoff level says, “If you have below this amount, it's not significant. It's not worth worrying about.” I will say, I've seen people get tested through other companies that do DNA testing, not the shotgun metagenomics, but the DNA testing will say, “You've got Clostridioides Difficile.” And they go, “Oh my God, I need the antibiotics! I need to be treated.”
And that's not the case. Right? There has got to be a good cutoff level, and you say, “Below that it's normal. It's normal.” So normal here means something that's pretty significant.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I think this section is helpful too. The... Exactly what you're saying. So although it's come back normal, it's not diagnostic, but things that are screened for are typically present in the gut.
So, it's only when it's elevated or has, there's too much of it that can cause a problem.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay, great. All right, so what's the next thing that you look at?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
So, then the second section, we go through things with the, we call gut pillars. So, they're the, the major items that we wanna look for, the things that are important in an overall functional gut health analysis.
And so, the first one here is digestion score.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And yours looks good.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. She’ll, she'll, she'll take some good news that you're, you're above the optimal range. And then if you wanna know, how that was determined, it was based on a balance of bacteria.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. So, this one's looking at ammonia production and amino acid degradation, and so, “Is the bacteria that's present in your gut indicative of somebody that may have issues with digestion or have poor digestion?” And mine looks normal.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great. Okay. That's encouraging. And the next section was inflammation.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yep. Inflammation score is the second one. So even though I do have one that's popping up at the beginning that says it can raise levels of inflammation in your gut, overall, my score is good. So, the balance of things that may be an issue and the things that are really helping to maintain or reduce inflammation in my gut are balanced to the point that my overall score is in an optimal range here.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now this would seem to be the place where the artificial intelligence machine learning aspect is really important because we're not just looking for one guy. We're not just looking for Salmonella. We're not just looking for Clostridioides, right? We're looking at the overall mix of bacteria, which are really hundreds, if not thousands of species.
So, I don't know. My brain's not big enough to be able to like look at all those different ones. And I should say that there is the option of downloading what's called the community report, which lists every single thing that was found. And when you see that, you go, “Oh my God, okay, I'm gonna go back to the analysis because you know, when I see what's under the hood of this machine, it can be quite overwhelming.”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, this is where the AI comes in handy cause the AI is saying, “Well, this guy's up a little bit, this is up a little bit.” But it gets balanced out by other bacteria. Am I correct in saying that?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yes. Yep. Exactly. I think what's really special about this too is in a traditional stools sample collection, they're, they're testing a metabolite, they're testing for calprotectin, or they're, they're testing something specific that would indicate inflammation. But really what the Thorne test is giving you is, “Are the bacteria in your gut helping you to balance or create... Are they helping create calprotectin or are they not?” And do you have things that are helping balance inflammation against what isn't?
And so, rather than just, “Yeah, you have, you have a metabolite of inflammation,” or not, you know what the population in your gut looks like, and whether that's... You're at a higher risk to develop that inflammation because of that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
If somebody had inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn's or ulcerative colitis, what would you expect this score to show?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I would expect that the score would show higher. It would be on this higher end here. And it could be for lots of reasons. One person with colitis or Crohn's could have completely different bacteria that are showing up in their picture. So, in the end, they all have inflammation, but they may have inflammation for different reasons, which is exactly why, you know, the same treatments aren’t... Unless you're using straight anti-inflammatory. If you really wanna treat their gut, they, they would have different things they would need to help balance that system out.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great. Very helpful. So, what next?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Then the third pillar is gut dysbiosis, which this one doesn't look as friendly on my score here, but dysbiosis really just means bacteria out of balance.
So, my score is a little high, indicating that I have some bacteria out of balance, or it's a high risk for dysbiosis, and people with dysbiosis could have a bunch of different symptoms or not have any. But really what it's looking like is, so they, the scores are showing here, like the little arrows say up, like, look, if, if you look at this Akkermansia one, it's staying up, but that doesn't mean my Akkermansia is high. My Akkermansia is actually low. So, this little indicator button is showing that that has increased my score in a bad way. So, the little red arrow shows that, that that increased my dysbiosis score. And in this case, higher score is not good.
But it increased because something that's protective against dysbiosis or something you'd want to have is low. So, you're getting both sides of the picture. I mean, you wanna have... People think of E. coli, like a bad thing, but Escherichia as a genera in your gut is something that you need.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yep.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
And you have to have it –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It's a normal player.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
– It's just doesn’t belong in places that that aren't in your gut and that's when it causes a problem. But having too much of it is not great. So, I have a little bit too much of that. So, it's a bit of both. You can see I have things that are a little too high and things that are too low, and so that's increasing that total dysbiosis score.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And already I'm starting to think, “Okay, low Akkermansia muciniphila, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. Those are both really good guys, right? For at least for most situations, right? I mean, there's no microbe that's 100% good all the time for everybody, but for most people, we want to have more of these. So that would be something you might wanna put on a shelf and say, “Okay, when I finished this test, I'm gonna come back and say, ‘Okay, I need to do something to correct that.’”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. This is, this is actually one of the biggest pieces that I acted upon after taking this test.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay, great. What else?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Then the next pillar, pillar number four, is intestinal permeability. So, this is what people think about when we say something like “leaky gut.” To me, what that means is I'd be more likely to be reactive to foods that I'm eating or bacteria in my gut, or other things that, that belong staying in my gut, but they're getting out and then getting into my bloodstream and then causing my system to react to them. And so, my score looks good, thankfully, but this is again, based on the bacteria balance in your gut and not a direct measure of things like you might see in some other traditional tests.
But it looks like here that I have some good guys that are high, maybe one that's, that's a little bit too high. But in an overall balance, my intestinal permeability score is good.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, wanna point out, again, you can also test permeability by giving people a solution of Lactulose mannitol [test] and seeing if you're absorbing molecules that are normally not absorbed cause they're too big, like the lactulose that coming out in your urine or not.
So, people might think, “Well, that's the only way to test for permeability.” This is testing to see if you have the predisposition to permeability, which you know, you, you might call it a virtual test, a virtual test for intestinal permeability, and I think it's quite comparable. I think it's comparable. There's a lot of variability in doing that lactulose mannitol test. You know, permeability can go up and down depending on what you've eaten.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Depending on the time of day. And this is telling you more, whether you have the propensity, the tendency towards that.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Which is more important that I would wanna know because even if it's high and I don't experience symptoms of it, and if, if my score were high, I might wanna pay a little more attention to it or maybe even pre-treat or do some things to help prevent some kind of imbalance that would lead to that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great. Okay. What else have we got here?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Then nervous system. This one's really interesting, which you're not gonna see a lot in other traditional tests, but it's, it's giving some information about the bacteria balance in your gut and whether it would lead to gut-brain axis miscommunication. So, we talk about the like gut-brain communication all the time, and it's kind of like a hip thing we've been talking about for a few years.
But I don't normally see that in a traditional stool test. So, this is giving me an idea of whether the bacteria imbalance in my gut would have a higher association with things that would cause a gut-brain imbalance. And this one's saying my score's a little bit high, so I may have a higher risk or a need for improvement to try to keep from mood imbalances happening. In my sample, it's suggesting that I maybe have a propensity to depressed mood.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Cool. So that could be really helpful for somebody that's got a mood disorder to realize maybe they could change their gut microbial profile and would make them feel more optimistic and upbeat.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I mean the, the answer isn't always just neurotransmitter support, right?
That those things all happen in your gut. And so having the right bacteria to make, I mean serotonin production majority happens in your gut, and I think people sort of miss that boat. So, knowing what that bacteria balance is in your gut, you're helping to treat the cause a little better than just taking something to fix the serotonin endpoint.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great. All right, so why don't we skip to more of an overview of like, what, you know, what all this is showing. Yeah, so this is a, this is a good place to look at the overview. Your beta diversity is 80%. Now you... Isn't... Aren't high scores good?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
So the... I know, even I had to go back and study this one! I was like, we need to process.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
What this is saying is that my score is high, which means it's a higher percentage away from normal or other healthy adults. So, it means I'm farther away from what sort of that middle ground is or what other healthy people who are reporting healthy guts or people who don't have other health issues or symptoms and what their gut bacteria balance looks like.
And mine's kind of far away from what the other people's look like, which is why the higher score is not necessarily great.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, the diversity means you're diverging from a, from a healthy population, at least from the current database that we have of what a healthy population looks like.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Exactly.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I, I'm guessing, I'm just guessing, but that low Akkermansia and low Faecalibacterium prausnitzii may have a lot to do with this.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I think that we're coming back to the same picture there,
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Which is good news because there's, there's something we can do about that.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Because there are options.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
There are options. So maybe we could, just in the interest of time, cause obviously there's a lot we could cover here, maybe we could skip to where all this stuff gets put together in a recommendation?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Sure. Let's see.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I think that's more at the very end...
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think we're getting there. Here we go.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. So you're on a good diet, it says.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Well, yeah that’s nice...
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Nice to know.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I’ll take that!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, maybe you should take some prebiotics.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah, I think I actually, not sure prebiotics are in my recommendation, but we can see here. It's saying to add nuts and seeds for me.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
And then my, oop you’re right, got prebiotic. Thankfully, I love prebiotic disc, so I didn't have to purchase that or have had an additional recommendation, but that's what I got. So, I got a prebiotic, which, which is what's great about the Thorne prebiotics. It can help rebalance. Not only can Prebiotic + help you get your good bacteria in line, it can also help reduce unwanted bacteria.
So that's kind of a double whammy. A lot of other prebiotics are just fiber and they can just feed what you've got for good guys. But because of the unique ingredients in Prebiotic + you can help rebalance. And then I got –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Am I correct that the... One of the primary targets of the the Effusio prebiotic is E. Coli?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
It is it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And that's, I remember your E. coli was high.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yep. It was high.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, this would help, like it's not knocking out all your E. coli, it's just bringing it into balance.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right. Exactly.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
And then it's the, the cool thing is it's like eating up the E. coli and then making it digestible for my good guys. So, it's turning bad –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. It's turning them into food.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Bad things into food, yeah. Super great.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Great.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
And a probiotic which we have a few different Thorne options and then onto Undecylenic Acid. So that one's added there probably to help with some of those other ones that were high and weren't looking so great there to help rebalance.
And then Metabolic Health is for a systemic support, and I think that goes back to that beta diversity score. My beta diversity score is high, which makes me more likely to have weight management issues. And some metabolic function not being optimal. And so Metabolic Health is in there to help support that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yes. Great. Okay. Any other closing comments that you might have about what you learned from this test?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
No, I think that I, I was happy to see, you know, everybody likes a little validation. I like my good news that some things are looking good here. And I do like that I have the ability to work on some other things so, so much good research coming out.
About Akkermansia, and we're looking into that as a company a little bit more, so that was really interesting for me to see as well. That was my favorite part.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
You know, it seems like one of the big things we're learning about microbiome testing is that it's as much about what's missing as it is about the bad guys that are causing problems.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Exactly.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. “The Missing Microbes,” I believe is what –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Sounds like a Nancy Drew novel!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Dr. Blaser. “The Missing Microbes.” Okay. So now we're gonna look at my score, which is from the test that I did about a month ago. You know, I would say I have a pretty good digestion overall, so, my main interest was making sure I didn't have any bad bugs that, you know, picked up in various travels or from you know, drinking water up in the mountains.
I never drink from streams anymore here in Colorado cause we have Giardia. But you know, I do drink well water and you never quite know. So, I wanted to know if I had any bad bugs and just what the overall picture looked like. So, the first score was my overall digestion. And as you pointed out, Amanda, that looks at the bacteria involved with ammonia production, which is meaning breaking down protein.
How are you at breaking down protein and amino acid degradation? And I said, you know, overall things looked pretty good. So that was, that was encouraging. My inflammation score was low. Also encouraging and very similar to yours. I had some elevation in a couple of less desirable bugs, Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonas.
And those are bacteria that have a lot of lipopolysaccharide or endotoxin in the membranes of the bacteria, but then that gets balanced out by genes associated with, with calprotectin, which actually helps to fight off the bad guys. So again, thank goodness for artificial intelligence.
Because if I just looked at these bacteria on my own, “Oh, this is, high. This is low.” I don't know what all that means, you know without kind of plugging it into the computer program. I wonder if you have any comments about that.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Oh, I don't really. Just what we had discussed when we looked at mine, I just think it's, it's, it's funny because we have one that's the same, one that's completely different. But we ended up with similar, really similar, similar scores.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Yeah. So again, analysis is basically where it's at.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Is, you know, what, what does the overall picture look like? Now when I look at gut dysbiosis again, I'm a little bit on the high side, not terribly high, but I'm high because I've also got Escherichia higher than normal.
It's normal to have some, but higher than normal. One thing that decreases it is Bifidobacteriam. And I do take a probiotic, so I'm assuming that that helps. I also eat goat yogurt, which I –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I love goat.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Love goat yogurt. Yeah, I eat it all the time. And I think that's got some pretty good probiotics in it.
One bacteria that I'm just learning a lot about recently is Blautia. And you know, again, if I wanted to dive into that, I can click on those, those letters and it'll tell me a little more about it.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think that the interesting thing about yours too is that you, you have a lot of everything, so you have a bunch of high, I don't see any that's like low or, “Oh, something's missing.”
You got a whole bunch of stuff, but you have a bunch of them that maybe are too many or too, too much in number.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, yeah. So. Little bit too much of this, a little bit too much of that. But, but again, no pathogens
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
No bugs that I would say, “Well, I really need antibiotics.”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It wasn't that long ago that I had to take some antibiotics for a, an infected tooth.
Maybe you say, “That's too much information! I don't wanna know that!” But you know what? You get old enough, these things happen.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
They do.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I wonder if this might have been the consequence of that. That perhaps I knocked out some of the good guys and the bad guys overgrew a little bit.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. Very possible.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So, the good news is that it didn't seem to affect my permeability. I'm, I'm well within the optimal range and there are some bacteria, some of the same ones that contribute to the dysbiosis that also contribute to an increased permeability score, but also it's lower because I have protective amounts of calprotectin.
So, we, I wanna clarify that one. Calprotectin is a substance made by immune cells that is part of your normal defense system in the gut. So, it's normal to make some calprotectin when you do a stool test looking specifically for calprotectin. You almost always will find some and I'd actually be nervous if people didn't have some.
It's just when it's off the chart that you go, “Oh, this could be a bad problem.”
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So you want adequate amounts of protected, but not too much. And that's what this is saying is that, “You've got species that make it. This is good. And that helps protect you.” Again, nervous system was good. So, I guess that means I will never have a mood disorder as long as I take the proper probiotics –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
You hope!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yes, I will. My beta diversity was 35%. Re- remind me what yours was, weren't you at like –
Dr. Amanda Frick:
80.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
80%. Oh, okay. So, third, the lower diversity score, that means I'm a little bit closer to the healthy population? Is that... Am I correct?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yes, but then they, they're still considering it high. So basically, yours is high. Mine's like skyrocket high. They just... Don't use descriptive terms.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Okay. Yeah. They don't go. “Whoa. Whoa. This one. This is a ringer. What are we gonna do?” Okay. So that means I could do something to help bring me closer to the norm of healthy people.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And then something we didn't talk about with yours is my immune readiness score says, “Well you could use a little improvement there.” You know, maybe there's a couple of things like Klebsiella and Streptococcus might be advantageous to bring those guys down.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
That section's interesting too, Bob. Yours all just say “high” again. I didn't see anything on yours that said low –
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Just the one, yeah. Nothing low, but I do have good bact... the bifidos [Bifidobacterium] seem to be open to me.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Good guys. Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Yeah. So I'd say that's gotta be because of the yogurt and the probiotics that I'm taking. And then as in the case with yours, all my pathogens were normal, very encouraging. I know that with a previous stool test that I used to do from another company, it seemed like everyone had Blastocystis!
Right? They’d all come back. But those, that was a microscopic test. So they... Somebody was looking at it and going, “I see these little round things. I think they're Blastocystis.” The DNA test is so much more accurate and if the DNA test says, “We don't see it,” then it's probably not there.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Which means we were over-diagnosing Blastocystis hominis.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Ooooh.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh yeah. That, I mean, for years, and I, I don't know, I've treated a lot of people for it in the past and I wonder how many people really needed it, if that, or if that's really what their problem was. So, it's good to have this newer technology out there. So again, all the way... Giardia is normal! That's... Living in Colorado, that’s a really good thing.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
That’s a win!
Dr. Robert Rountree:
That’s a big win. You know, because it is out there. So, what were the recommendations for me? As with you, I had too much of the E. coli, so the Effusio prebiotic was recommended. The FloraMend Prime! Love that probiotic, very well-studied probiotic and the Metabolic Health!
So, we had very similar kind of recommendations. Again, bergamot and curcumin. And also B Complex.
Dr. Amanda Frick:
A B vitamin.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now why would, how could we use the stool test to know if somebody needs B vitamins? Could you explain that to me?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
Yeah. We have a section here. We do have data about certain bacteria helping your gut produce B vitamins.
And so, you must have had indicators that were low. So, you must have had a B, a B vitamin. You had a low bacteria somewhere, they just didn't show up in the other scores. But you must be lacking some that are helping to produce B vitamins. So, we're recommending B vitamins for you.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, this has been a really interesting tour!
Clearly, we're just scratching the surface of what you can do here. As I mentioned, you can also download the community report. So the... For the people who are real geeks, they can download this community report and it tells you everything they found in there. And having looked at that on a few patients, I can tell you, you can spend a long time kind of plowing through it, looking for specific things.
So, we're just scratching the surface here of what's possible with this particular test. Well, I think that's all the time we have for this particular episode. Amanda, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. If people wanna follow more of what you're up to and the kind of things that you're developing for Thorne, where would they go?
Dr. Amanda Frick:
I think we put a lot of information on Take Five Daily. So, I would watch Take Five Daily. You can sign up for Research Extract emails, so those come out in a Take Five Daily post for consumers. And then at physicians, we have a, a different set of Research Extracts that you can watch.
And then I think, you know, watching The Thorne Podcast and watching the blog in social media, you'll hear where some of the new things are coming.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Terrific. We're really looking forward to that. So that was Thorne's Vice President of Medical Affairs, Dr. Amanda Frick on Thorne's Gut Health Test. And I hope you've really got the sense that this is really advanced, very sophisticated analysis that's being offered here.
As always, thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like what you heard, tell a friend about our show and please tune in again. Thanks for listening to The Thorne Podcast. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app of choice.
If you've got a health or wellness question you'd like answered, simply follow our Instagram and shoot a message to @thornehealth. You can also learn more about the topics we discussed by visiting Thorne.com and checking out the latest news, videos, and stories on Thorne's Take Five Daily blog. Once again, thanks for tuning in and don't forget to join us next time for another episode of The Thorne Podcast.
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