The Importance of Gene Expression: DNA vs. RNA
Viome’s science and business are based on a very important insight: your “transcriptome” (which genes are on or off) is more important than your DNA sequence.
While most scientists and researchers focus on your entire genome (i.e., what genes you inherited from mom and dad) for clues to better fight chronic disease, Viome’s CEO Naveen Jain and his science team realized that it’s much more critical to build a set of diagnostic tests that focus on mRNA—that is, which genes are active.
As it turns out, your DNA doesn’t change over the course of your life. Whether you suffer from a disease or not, your DNA is identical.
What does change between being healthy and the onset and progression of disease is your gene expression: which genes are expressed (i.e., turned on for transcription into mRNA and thereafter proteins), how they are expressed, and how the expression of these genes changes over time.
When the right set of genes is expressed (activated) to the correct levels, your body is finely tuned and healthy. But when certain genes are expressed either less or more than normal, this can lead to a chronic disease or cancer.
So, can we measure gene expression?
And what if we could measure not only your human genes, but the gene expression of the nearly 100 trillion bacteria in your gut microbiome that transform food into fuel, and how these microbial genes impact your overall health?
That’s where Viome comes in.
The company uses a unique, peer-reviewed and clinically licensed technology called metatranscriptomics to accurately measure the expression level for all human and all microbial genes in your body.
As Naveen points out, by analyzing your microbiome, adjusting your diet and nutrition, and understanding which supplements you need, you can improve your overall health while reducing your risk of disease progression.
For example, are spinach and broccoli good for everyone? What about vitamin B3 (Niacin)?
It turns out that spinach and broccoli, while packed with nutrients, also contain ingredients that could be toxic to some people due to high concentrations of oxalates in spinach and sulfur in broccoli, which can be harmful if the gut microbiome is not properly processing them.
Similarly, vitamin B3 (Niacin) is not suitable for everyone. If your body has high production levels of uric acid, taking vitamin B3 could be harmful.
For example, after completing my last Viome Full-Body Intelligence™ test, here’s what I learned about my top foods to avoid, and my superfoods (just a partial selection):
Avoid: Artichoke, Black Beans, Caviar (), Coconut milk, Grapefruit, Onion, Tomato...
Superfoods: Almonds, Alfalfa Sprouts, Apples, Beets, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Salmon, Spinach, Tofu...
For each of these, Viome provides an explanation about why to select or avoid each food.
Viome’s AI-based platform, which has been trained on millions of data points from the company’s 16,000+ clinical research participants, can tell you how your unique microbiome responds to over 300 foods, and how each one could benefit or harm you.
This is the accurate picture of your unique health that Viome provides, but how exactly does it work?
How Viome’s Tech Works
Viome’s most popular service is its Full Body Health Solutions, which includes its Full Body Intelligence test, along with a suite of personalized health products, including supplements, gut biotics, and oral biotics (which I have personally just started using).
The first step in the process is to take very small amounts of saliva, blood, and stool (an at-home, easy-to-use process).
The results of your Full Body Intelligence test include a number of key metrics including: your gut, oral, and cellular health; your cellular health; the health of your immune system; brain and cognitive function; your heart health; and even your biological age.
Viome’s AI then interprets all this data to provide you with highly personalized dietary and supplement recommendations that are based on your particular biology.
The goal is to give you an accurate picture of your unique health, and suggestions on what you can do to optimize it through specific foods and custom-formulated supplements, gut biotic, and oral biotic formulas.
Importantly, the platform and its recommendations are dynamic: as your body changes over time, so will the recommendations.
I just completed my Viome testing and one of the experiments I’m personally trying starting on August 1, 2024 is switching over to Viome’s prescribed supplements, and I’ll then measure myself again during the next quarter.
What the Data Show: Food is Medicine
Last year, Viome’s scientists reported the results of a clinical trial that measured the effects of Viome’s food and supplement recommendations and biotics on several diseases.
The results were published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.
Here are some of the findings:
In a separate study, 550 people in Japan and 550 people in the United States took their Viome test and then wore a continuous glucose monitor for 14 days. During that time, the participants collectively consumed 60,000 meals and recorded the blood sugar responses to all of them.
Viome then used an AI that analyzed microbial activity, which was able to predict the glycemic response of different foods: if you eat this food, then this will be your body’s sugar response in your blood.
During my upcoming Longevity Platinum Trip, we’ll be hearing from Dr. Susan Lynch, Director of The Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine at UCSF, a leading researcher in the gut microbiome field who is helping to understand the underlying connection between the microbiome and chronic disease. If you choose to join us, get ready to better understand your gut health.
Why This Matters
As you put together your individual strategy for implementing a personalized, predictive, and preventative health journey, having real knowledge (rather than opinion and hearsay) is critical.
I’ve been impressed by Viome’s data, research and publications. Another key indicator of success worth noting is the “Breakthrough Device Designation” awarded to Viome by the FDA for their RNA sequencing (metatranscriptomic) in detecting oral and throat cancer. And while Viome has already made significant strides in general health and specific conditions like depression, anxiety, IBS, diabetes, and aging, their AI is continuously learning.
Understanding your microbiome is an open frontier ripe for innovation and a chance to make a huge difference in our health by optimizing every person’s unique biological makeup.
Now is truly an exciting time to understand how to improve our health in ways we previously couldn’t have even imagined.
Live Abundantly,
Peter. H. Diamandis, MD