Viome’s Health Intelligence Service reveals 5 new health score categories with the introduction of the world’s first human gene expression test
Viome introduces our new Health Intelligence™ Service which includes: Gut Intelligence™ Test and our new Human Gene Expression™ Test. With the launch of this revolutionary service, for the first time ever, you are able to get an ultra-focused, holistic picture of what is happening inside your cells to better understand the effects of your diet and lifestyle on your immunity, mitochondrial and cellular health, internal biological age, and gut microbiome.
The future of health is here!
With Health Intelligence you receive a digital snapshot of how your body and microbiome are currently functioning translated through various scores and also get a personalized action plan with precise food and supplement recommendations to help improve and optimize your health.
Following your food and supplement recommendations can help impact areas of your health and wellbeing, such as immunity, mental clarity, quality of sleep, weight maintenance, healthy aging, and energy levels.
We are extremely excited to share details about our latest technology through these insightful health scores available with our Health Intelligence Service.
What is Human Gene Expression?
Your destiny is not in your genes but how those genes are expressed. While DNA is static and never changes throughout your life, RNA (gene expression, or the carrying out of the DNA’s function) is dynamic, and changes constantly depending on diet, stress levels, lifestyle, and environment.
Viome’s Human Gene Expression test is the missing piece in the puzzle for viewing the current health of our bodies. Our gene expression can be influenced by our gut microbiome and our nutrition. The interactions between the three functions can reveal incredible information about our overall health.
At Viome, we first focused solely on the gut microbiome as it accounts for 80% of microbes in the body. But, the blood is a key part of our understanding of gene expression and what it can say about our health.
The circulatory system connects with all parts of the body, including the gut. By assessing gene expression in your blood cells, we’re able to see activity of molecular pathways related to inflammation in both your gut microbiome and in your body through measuring cellular health.
By assessing gene expression in a blood cell, we can get a better sense of what may be happening in the entire body.
Measuring your health at home
After submitting both blood and stool samples for analysis and answering a health questionnaire, you’ll see new Integrative Health Scores that provide an overview of your body’s health by combining functional activity and pathway scores derived from your blood and microbiome expression data. The result is a more comprehensive picture of human health.
Viome’s new Health Intelligence Service Health Score Categories
Your Gut Microbiome Health Score is made up of results that currently exist in our stand-alone, award-winning, Gut Intelligence test.
As we have found with over 100,000 users of Gut Intelligence, your gut microbiome is linked to all aspects of your wellness like weight management, energy levels, digestive efficiency, stress, sleep, mood, immunity, and overall health.
Viome provides an unparalleled understanding of the current health of your gut microbiome. Your Gut Microbiome Health score is made up of more than 20 integrative functional scores and related pathway scores with molecular specificity needed to provide insights on Microbial Inflammatory Activity, Protein Digestion, Gas Production, Digestive Efficiency, Metabolic Fitness, Gut Lining Health, and Active Microbial Diversity.
When your Gut Microbiome Health score is low it means that your gut microbiome may be producing chemicals that are causing inflammation (such as LPS, sulfide, or ammonia) or not producing enough nutrients that your body needs (such as butyrate, serotonin, and other vitamins). Our food and supplement recommendations are designed specifically for you to optimize your microbial functions and bring your gut microbiome into balance.
NEW Health Score Categories
The introduction of our Human Intelligence Service marks a world-first test to combine measuring your Human Gene Expression in conjunction with the current health of your gut microbiome. Get a glimpse inside your cells for unique insights into their overall health, including cellular stress, mitochondrial health, cellular aging, and your immune response, and how your cells produce energy to function optimally and rejuvenate themselves.
Biological Age
Does your body say you are younger or older than the age on your birth certificate?
Your Biological Age assesses the efficiency of your cellular activities and your gut microbial activities in order to determine how well you are aging in comparison with your chronological age. If your Biological Age is substantially higher than your chronological age, this means that at a cellular level, your body is aging faster compared with other people your age. Your food and supplement recommendations will target the underlying causes detailed in your other Integrative Health scores.
Viome’s comprehensive AI has analyzed data from more than 100,000 people to be able to match the molecular patterns from your data to people of different ages, which we use to predict your approximate biological age (this score is not available for minors).
Good news—while your chronological clock is always ticking, this score is dynamic and you may be able to impact it through making the right health and nutrition choices for you.
Cellular Health
The human body is composed of trillions of cells that provide structure for the body, converting nutrients into energy and carrying out specialized functions. Every single cell in your body has the same DNA. Cellular Health measures multiple biological themes reflected in pathway activity scores (what actions or processes in your cells are actively happening) like cellular stress and immune response, mitochondrial health, energy production, and aging.
Your Cellular Health score offers a detailed picture of what is happening in the human body on the cellular level and takes into account the aging of your cells, cellular stress, cellular inflammation along with the health of your mitochondria. If your Cellular Health score is not optimal or low, this can mean that your cellular functions are not performing efficiently, your energy production is low, or your cells are undergoing stress due to oxidative stress, inflammation, or environmental toxins. To improve this score, we may recommend antioxidants or anti-inflammatory food and supplements specifically for you.
Immune System Health
How strong is your immunity? Your body’s immune system is your defense against the invisible invaders that seek to use you as a host to infect and reproduce. Your immune system may not be ready to fight the invading bacteria or viruses if it’s already dealing with inflammation caused by cellular stress, an overactive immune system, or toxins produced by your gut microbiome due to an unhealthy diet.
Inflammation is a crucial body response for survival. But relatively higher levels of it consistently can overburden your body. We measure inflammatory activity in both your body’s systems and your microbiome. Your immune system may be triggered to increase inflammation by viruses, stress, or diet and medications. It can also come from the microbiome, especially if your gut lining health is compromised. The Human Gene Expression analysis reveals to us cellular pathways related to acute or low-grade inflammation, while the Gut Intelligence analysis can reveal microbial or GI factors.
If your Immune System Health score is not optimal, it means that your immune system's preparedness to invading bacteria or viruses needs support. We may recommend specific foods or supplements that address harmful microbial activities, stimulate anti-inflammatory nutrients (like the short-chain fatty acids produced by the gut microbiome), or suppress pro-inflammatory molecules or allergy-related reactions in the body.
Mitochondrial Health
Mitochondria are considered the powerhouse of the cell, supplying energy for basic cellular functions like care and repair of cells in the body. Each cell contains hundreds to thousands of mitochondria that have their own DNA, known as mitochondrial DNA. In addition to analyzing microbial and human gene expression, Viome also analyzes the gene expression from your mitochondria.
Your Mitochondrial Health score is an integrative score that assesses the efficiency of the functions of your mitochondria that are required to meet your body's energy and metabolic demands. If your Mitochondrial Health score is not optimal, it could mean that your cells are not receiving enough energy to function efficiently, resulting in accelerated aging, and poor metabolism, cardiovascular, and brain health. Your supplement recommendations may include nutrients to boost mitochondria production or other coenzymes needed to increase cellular energy (the energy-rich molecule adenosine triphosphate, or ATP).
Stress Response
Your energy levels and stress response are good indicators for how your body meets energy demands to perform essential functions, manage inflammation, stress, detox, and to repair and care for itself.
We combine insights from your cellular functions that measure your resilience as well as stress triggers that may come from your lifestyle or toxins produced by your gut microbiome. This involves biological pathways of cellular detox, repair, resilience to cell wear and tear, and protective properties against various molecular and possibly microbial “offenders.”
Stress response and energy levels can be affected or reflected by both your microbiome and cellular functions. This health score combines biological pathways for mitochondrial health (the powerhouses within your cells), cellular aging and stress, and gut microbiome induced stress triggers.
Your New and Redesigned Health Scores and Supporting Scores
With the new information we are able to gather from the Human Gene Expression Test in combination with Gut Intelligence Test insights, we are able to redesign how your scores are viewed by tiering them into levels, many of which are used to calculate the five highest level scores explained above.
You’ll be able to see these 5 top-level, Integrated Health Score categories, supported by Integrated Functional Scores and Pathway Scores, delivered straight to your Viome app as soon as your Health Intelligence samples are finished analyzing:
See the personalized health insights from these important score categories for yourself, with a Health Intelligence Test. Find out more here.
