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Can we make the diagnosis of insufficiency dysbiosis based on the Doctor’s Data test?

Chris: This actually ties right into what we we’re just talking about. The Doctor’s Data test is not great for that because, Danny as you say, the stool samples are grown on culture medium, and then abundance is reported by the level of growth. Given that some organisms grow best in certain conditions which are different than in vivo, you can’t assume that the culture part of that test is reflecting the growth of those pathogens. In the past, we were using things like uBiome or others to quantify the beneficial bacteria, but I think that’s where the GI Map can be helpful because that’s using DNA PCR and a quantitative report, so you can actually see what’s happening with Bifidobacteria, Lactobacillus, and so on. Now, the problem even with the DNA PCR is that you’re only catching what comes out in the stool, and as we know, a lot of what determines intestinal health is in the mucosal bacteria, which isn’t shed in the stool. We don’t have a way of testing for right now, but that’s not a problem that’s solvable with stool testing, so we might as well use the best stool test that we can. For that portion of the Doctor’s Data test, I kind of just— I’d mostly ignore that section and tell people that it’s not that representative of bacteria in the colon because of the methodology that’s being used, but it’s still valuable for all of the pathogens, inflammatory markers, and all those other things.

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