The Health Check Your Annual Physical Skips
Your yearly physical measures blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure, among other markers used to diagnose disease. It does not look at broad predictive markers of health including your gut microbiome which regulates digestion, immune signaling, metabolism and more. Gut microbiome sequencing fills that blind spot by identifying which bacteria, fungi, and other microbes live in your gut and how they function.
You’re sitting at the doctor's office while they take your blood pressure, draw a few vials of blood, and check markers like complete blood counts and blood glucose. Your doctor reads the numbers, tells you they look fine or they do not, and may book further testing if any of the diagnostic measures appear outside of the pre-determined ‘normal’. However, what doctors measure are well known markers that indicate that something is already wrong and help decide how to diagnose and treat illness. They do not measure broad markers of overall health or the gut microbiome.
What does a standard physical actually measure?
A routine metabolic panel checks a variety of markers in your blood. Sugar, electrolytes, immune system, kidney and liver markers, cholesterol. These have been the backbone of the annual checkup for decades because they are strong markers that help to catch real problems once someone is unwell. As a part of your physical, your doctor might also test your stool or urine. None of them say a word about the bacteria doing a large share of the work in your digestive system.
Why isn't the gut microbiome on the list?
Partly habit, partly technology. While your doctor measures markers of gut health such as blood present in the stool, or immune markers in blood samples, they do not measure your gut microbiome. Measuring your microbiome requires DNA sequencing, which only became fast, affordable and more reliable recently. Your gut microbiome includes the full community of microbes in your digestive tract and was a black box for most of medical history. So the standard health panels grew up without it. The major reason that classic clinical testing does not examine the gut microbiome still today is that there is no single defining marker of microbiome health that works for everyone. This is because there are many different microbe species that have overlapping functions which means each person can have a diverse and different microbiome community but it is still capable of supporting health or driving disease. Thus, to test the gut microbiome requires expert knowledge and individualized analysis and reporting. .
What can gut microbiome sequencing show that bloodwork can't?
A comprehensive look at the gut microbiome identifies things blood markers miss: the variety of different microbes that live naturally in your gut, the levels of the helpful ones, signs of microbes overgrowing where they should not, and how well your microbes are supporting your health. Most people do not fully appreciate or know that your gut microbes break down food, produce nutrients and neurohormones, and communicate with human cells throughout your body. For example, your gut produces ~50% of the body’s dopamine and 90% of serotonin which are neurohormones important for regulating mood and emotions. These are modifiable risk markers. You can act on them through diet, lifestyle modifications, and conversations with a clinician who has the data in front of them.
Who should test their gut microbiome?
People dealing with bloating, irregular digestion, stubborn fatigue, metabolism issues, or brain fog often have questions a blood panel cannot answer. People who feel fine and want to stay ahead of things or optimize their health and performance can also benefit. The Gut Microbiome Program from Dayhoff Health uses methods including shotgun metagenomic sequencing, which reads the DNA of your gut microbes to identify which microbes are there, how abundant they are, and what they are doing. This is important because you can have the right microbes living in your gut, but if they are not functionally healthy themselves then they will not support your health the way you might expect them to. The analysis runs in a CLIA-certified laboratory, the same certification standard that applies to clinical diagnostic labs.
Your blood gets checked every year, but your gut runs the whole time, and often goes unmeasured. It's worth a look.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a standard physical check the gut microbiome?
No. Standard bloodwork measures markers like blood sugar and cholesterol and does not assess gut microbes.
What is gut microbiome sequencing?
It is a method that reads the DNA of the microbes in your gut to identify which species are present and what functions they carry.
Is gut microbiome testing only for people with symptoms?
No. Many people have their gut microbiome tested while feeling well to establish a baseline, identify lifestyle and diet changes to elevate their health and performance, and stay ahead of health risks and changes that occur long before symptoms show up.
Is the Dayhoff Health program lab-certified?
Yes. The Gut Microbiome Program runs in a CLIA-certified laboratory.